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HEDGES, 
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Hedges 

Windbreaks 
Shelters 



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Live rences 



A Treatise on the PlaiUing, Growth and namgen^ent of 
Hedge Plants for Country and Suburtxin Homes 




P^^ POWELL 



ILLUSTRATED 



New Yorft 
ORANGE JUDD COMPANY 

1900 



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55328 



l_ibrMr y of Con< ?••••«« 

OCT 2 1900 

S£r.Otjf> COPY. 
OHOtK DWISION, 

OCT 18 1900 



Copyright, 1900 
BY ORANGE JUDD COMPANY 



DEDICATION 



This book is dedicated to the Farmers of America ; the noblest 
race of men God's sun ever shone upon ; a race headed by George 
Washington and Thomas Jefferson ; a race that made the Republic, 
and that has the future of American freedom and prosperity in its 
keeping. 



Table of Contents 



PAGE. 

Introduction ---------___ ix 

Chapter I. 

Live Fences -------- -___i 

• 
Chapter II. 

Deciduous Hedges ---__._ .__i-j 

Chapter III. 
Hedges for Small Lawns, or for Dividing Lawns ; and 

Without Special Regard to Utility ----- 38 

Chapter IV. 
Evergreens for Hedges ---------49 

Chapter V. 
Windbreaks, Shelters, Etc ----___ 75 

Chapter VI. 
Neglected Beauty - --------- 105 

Chapter VII. 
Misplaced Hedges, Windbreaks, Etc - - - - - 113 

Chapter VIII. 
Renovating the Deserted Homestead ----- 125 

Chapter IX. 
Homes ----_-_-__-- 131 



List of Illustrations 



1 Buckthorn Hedge— Frontispiece ----- page. 

2 Evergreen Hedge Bordering Drives - - - - 14 

3 Windbreak on Grounds of Houghton Seminary, Clin- 

ton, N. Y. ----------- 22 

4 Ground Plan of Suburban Home, with Fruit Garden - zi 

5 Hemlock Hedge About Suburban Home - - - - 50 

6 Arbor- Vitse Hedge Leading to Country Cottage - - 53 

7 Entrance to Suburban Home of Twelve Acres - - 64 

8 Ground Plan of Village Plot, with Flowers, Hedges 

and Windbreaks ----------73 

9 Second Entrance to Suburban Home of Twelve Acres 74 

10 Windbreak of Cedar Forty Feet High — House About 

Entirely Concealed --------82 

11 Ground Plan of Country Place with Arbor-Vitre 

Hedges _-___------ 86 

12 Hedge of Arbor-Vit?e in Winter ----- 92 

13 Shrubbery Lawn with Ornamental Hedges - - - 96 

14 Ground Plan of Country Place, Sheltered by Norway 

Spruce -----------98 

15 Woman's Sewing Balcony ------ loi 

16 Ground Plan of Country Place ------ 106 

17 Ground Plan of Farm Plot with Tartarian Honey- 

suckle Hedges --------- 112 

18 Residence with Street Hedge, and Another Without 126 

19 Village Plot with Hemlock Hedges - - - - 124 

20 Evergreen Circle on Lawn, with Bird House - - 126 

21 Shelter and Croquet Ground ------ 134 

22 Ground Plan of Suburban Place ----- 139 



INTRODUCTION 



A book on hedges, live fences, windbreaks and 
shelters is called for, and I shall respond to the call, 
with the intention of preparing a compact handbook, 
that will be of specific use to the largely increasing 
class of people who appreciate the fact that country 
life is, or may be, the ideal life. Live fences are of 
much less importance in the United States since the 
very general passage of stock laws and their nearly 
universal enforcement. We do not any longer ha\^e 
to build fences against all the world, but only to see 
that our own stock commits no trespass. For this 
[)urpose wire will be chosen generally where there 
are ranches or large pastures, while lumber sections 
will still use board fences. There is, however, suffi- 
cient use of live fences to make it necessary to take 
the subject under consideration. The subject of 
windbreaks, on the contrary, is growing greatly in 
importance. The people are waking up to the neces- 
sity of an almost universal use of such protections 
against the drying effect of winds and the breaking 
force of storms. Ornamental hedges are also grow- 
ing in favor because of their peculiar effectiveness in 
producing variety in landscape — besides they always, 
more or less, are serviceable as windbreaks. The 
uses to which a hedge may be put are ( i ) as fence, 
(2) ornament, (3) windbreak, (4) to equalize mois- 
ture and temperature, (5) to furnish bird food. 

ix 



X INTRODUCTION. 

This last point may not be considered by some people 
of sufficient importance to be discussed in a prac- 
tical treatise. I am not sure but it is the most 
practical and important question that I can possibly 
lay before my readers. Certainly it shall not be 
overlooked. The materials to be used for the pur- 
poses enumerated class themselves under the head 
of deciduous and evergreen. These will be sepa- 
rately discussed. 

My object will not be to say everything that 
can be said about my topic, but succinctly and clearly 
to give necessary information. I shall especially not 
undertake to create an enthusiasm for hedge plant- 
ing; knowing well that where such a tendency is 
aroused it must be well sustained or the results will 
soon be a disgrace to our farms and rural residences. 
I shall keep this continually in view to stimulate my 
readers, and through them the American public, to 
a higher conception of the beautiful in home-making. 
The truly beautiful cannot be established by making 
a fad of any one sort of utilities, or of ornaments 
like arbors, or of ornamental utilities like hedges. 
It is by a judicious and thoughtful use of all that 
nature provides that we make our surroundings the 
best. It is especially desirable that w^e learn to dis- 
cover — to see — what nature freely offers us; for 
often the most glorious as well as the most 
valuable things are overlooked, while the inferior 
are cultivated. 

Traveling through the New England states, I 
am impressed with the fact that — with many noble 
exceptions — the most i>eautiful places are those 
where nature has had most freedom. I have 



INTRODUCTION. XI 

longed to own some of tlie superb gardens of pines 
in New Hampshire, sown not by the hands of men ; 
while my heart has grown warm over many a glori- 
ous hillside in Massachusetts where Mother Nature 
has thrown up her granite walls and lifted her wind- 
breaks, and run charming hedge lines, and dotted 
the trees just right, in groups and in singles, without 
a house in sight. Man sliould go to school to nature 
before he undertakes to improve nature. But this 
we should all refuse to do, waste or distort or abuse 
what is given to us freely. The fact that by far the 
majority of so-called homes are not homes of reason, 
taste and high sentiment, of beauty and utility har- 
monized, remains as the chief disgrace of our com- 
munities. I do not mean that we should let things 
go wild, or that a beautiful shrubbery is most beau- 
tiful when least cultivated. Not a spot exists on the 
globe that does not need exactly what God put in 
Eden — a man and a woman to trim and control it. 
A soul is needed everywhere, and a hand, but a 
brutish soul and a brute-force hand is needed 
nowhere. Nature does best without both these. 
Plant, but plant with brains. Trim, but trim 
thoughtfully. So you ^vill be, not a mere autocrat 
over the vegetable and animal kingdoms, but a wise 
and loving friend. The end will be that you will be 
in love with all about you, and in turn will win all 
love — till the birds sing for you an.d the roses blos- 
som for you. Your work in the garden and in the 
field will become a poem. 

I take up this work all the more gladly because 
of the unexpected, but none the less welcome, 
reversal of the tide of population into congested city 



Xll INTRODUCTION. 

life. The tide townward, which has gone on since 
the steam age began, about 1835-40, and with in- 
creasing volume up to 1890, has at last begun to ebb. 
The tendency to move outward has already taken 
up nearly every deserted farm, and is buying up all 
available land within one hundred miles or more of 
the larger cities. The rise of electricity as the world's 
motive power has made this possible. Steam power 
never could serve the farmer as it could serve the 
manufacturer. It built great factories, and around 
factories grew our great towns. Steam took our 
best brains and our best hands away from the farm. 
It took our most interesting employments out of our 
home life to do the knitting, sewing, soap-making, 
spinning, weaving, candle-making and shoemaking 
in vast establishments by machinery. The farmer 
was left to do, as well as he could, what coarse things 
were left for him to do, by hand power and animal 
power. Electricity is bound to reverse all this. 
Steam was concentrating, electricity is distributive. 
You can carry steam only an eighth of a mile with 
profit; electricity you may carry hundreds of miles. 
The twentieth century will open with a vastly 
increasing country population, all bound together 
with telephones and trolley roads. A large share of 
business will be done by telephone. Merchants will 
sit in their houses one hundred miles from their 
stores, yet within speaking distance of their em- 
ployees. Coming ont to breathe pure air and enjc^y 
green fields, the tide will bring wealth and culture 
and refinement. The country will get back its 
population, with a gain. We shall once more have 
our farmer presidents, as in the days of Wash- 



INTRODUCTION. Xlll 

ington, Jefferson and Madison — all tillers of the 
land. 

With this drift of the times, nothing can give 
more pleasure than to contribute to the most enlight- 
ened use of the land and the things of the land. 
We must hasten to reverse the waste of the useful 
and the beautiful, the wanton destruction of our 
windbreaks and water preserves. The small contri- 
bution of a few rods of windbreaks or hedges or 
a clump of shelter may seem an insignificant item, 
but these taken in the aggregate of tens of thousands 
Aviil do more than large forest plantations and 
reservations to equalize temperature and water pre- 
cipitation. Whoever builds a beautiful home and 
surrounds it with judicious plantings of trees is a 
public benefactor. 



CHAPTER I. 

LIVE FENCES. 

I shall discuss in this chapter the subject oi 
live fences ; not because of its general importance, but 
because of its supreme importance where it is needed 
at all. The introduction of wire as a material for 
fencing has become so common, and its adaptation 
to long ranges is so perfect, while the material is 
cheap and the fence quickly built, that it has largely 
displaced the use or need of live fences. The list 
of plants serviceable for a fence has not greatly 
changed during fifty years. The Osage orange 
stands at the head of the list for many sections. It 
is hardy, robust and capable of turning cattle. The 
hawthorn is less robust, and is subject to attacks of 
the woolly aphis. It is also less hardy, while very 
liable to lose its foliage early in the summer, like mosl 
of the thorns, from a fungous foe. The buckthorn 
is decidedly preferable to the hawthorn for general 
planting. It is free from blight and mildews, and 
I have never known it to be attacked by any other 
insect than the hop louse. This aphis, after several 
generations on plum trees and buckthorn hedges, 
migrates to the hop field. The damage done to the 
buckthorn is not serious, but is defacing. The 
leaves are curled and young growth is checked. 
The wild or native crab apple makes a stout defense, 
and it is also capable of being made ornamental. 



2 HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS^ SHELTERS^ ETC. 

Its form can never be made regular, which is often 
an advantage. Fences of seedhng apples have been 
occasionally tried, and have proved to be more or 
less useful in turning annuals. Their chief value, 
however, is as windbreaks. 

Such hedges if exposed to animals will be 
pruned by them, and to some extent broken. Their 
irregularity and unmanageableness soon makes them 
occupy too much space for a fence. I have also 
found that the individuality of apple growth is so 
marked that no two trees can be relied upon to grow 
with equal vigor or similar habits. One will rise 
almost as direct as a Normandy poplar and the next 
sprawl out or show a propensity for weeping. There 
are special advantages about the three-thorned 
Gleditschia or honey locust. It certainly makes a 
formidable fence, and, if well trimmed, is the most 
beautiful of our live fences. It is impenetrable to 
man or beast. I have, however, found one trouble 
that is fatal to this fence, except when used on a 
small scale; it is very likely to be girdled by mice 
during the winter months. Where there is a short 
strip, the rodents can be stopped from their work by 
the use of coal ashes freely piled along the roots. 
Willow for fencing has not proved of any permanent 
value. Where such fences have been planted they 
have in some cases, however, developed into very 
good windbreaks. We may therefore pass by all 
material for live fences except the Osage orange, the 
honey locust and buckthorn. These three require 
more thorough examination and discussion. 

Osage orange f Madura aiiranfiaca) is a native 
of Arkansas and other southwestern states, where 



LIVE FENCES. 



it rises to a forest hight of sixty feet. It is really 
one of the handsomest of the forest trees of the 
southwest. The wood is very durable, and said to be 
more valuable in shipbuilding than live oak. It is 
otherwise of great use because of taking on a fine 
polish for furniture. Tlie Indians found it so elastic 
and tough for bows that they called it bow wood, 
and the French termed it Bois d'Arc. About 1800 
Mr. Choteau of St. Louis planted seed of this tree, 
and Mr. Landreth of Philadelphia planted it in 1803. 
Hedges were first tried about 1840. In 1845, that 
genius of horticulture, Professor Turner of Jackson- 
ville, 111., reported that it had proved hardy with him 
during six years of trial. The seed soon became 
\alual)le, and was so sought for that the speculative 
price went up to $50 dollars a bushel. From 1850 
to 1870 there was no subject of more importance 
to agriculture than live fences. Everywhere the 
best material was souglit for, and nothing seemed 
to be better, especially for the prairie land, than 
Osage orange. The prairie farmers went wild with 
excitement. In 1868 alone, Texas and Arkansas 
received over $100,000 for seed. One nurseryman 
of Illinois had 400 acres of plants. It was estimated 
that 60,000 miles of fence were planted in 1869. 
The cost was figured out at $48 a mile for the first 
year, about $20 for the second A^ar, about $12 for 
the third, and after that very little beyond the 
expense of trimming. Rut, alas, here was where 
the trouble came in. Not one mile in ten was ever 
properly trimmed. The fences grew out of all 
bounds. The lower limbs died, breaks occurred, 
while upper limbs threw out ferocious arms to 



4 HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS^ SHELTERS^ ETC. 

scratch and tear. I do not know one Osage orange 
fence now remaining in central New York that is in 
])rime condition. Most of them have been cut down. 
A few stand as windbreaks, but are scraggy, irregu- 
lar and unsightly. 

On the lower lands of the west, the Osage 
orange proved not quite hardy. The difficulty was 
largely with conditions of the soil. Careful drainage 
was always requisite. Planters soon learned to 
throw up ridges on which the plants were set. These 
ridges, twenty inches high, were rapidly prepared 
with plows, and the plants found the soil thus thrown 
up in admirable condition to be filled with fibrous 
roots. As soon as the hedge became strong enough 
to serve as a fence and turn cattle, root pruning was 
easily applied — also done with the plow — cutting off 
the ends of the roots with a revolving coulter. This 
combination of hedge and ditch was found to make a 
very admirable fence. These open ditches, run 
alongside of the hedges, served as drainage channels 
during the wet months, also holding water for stock 
during the dry season. When deepened into pools, 
they were found to be of decided value on the level 
lands of the west. During the dry season such 
channels act as ditches always do, not to render the 
soil more dry Init more moist. In some cases 
farmers grew corn rows on both sides of a ditch \n 
order to preserve the water as late as possible in 
summer. As a rule, the best live fences required 
double setting. Single rows did not prove absolutely 
a defense against hogs and sheep. 

The use of honey locust (Glcditschia triaran- 
Ihos) began a few years after that of Osage orange. 



LIVE FENCES. 5 

It proved to be more hardy, and although the fohage 
gives it a more deHcate appearance, the thorns are 
strong and the wood is stiff from the outset. A 
very young hedge of this sort will turn animals. 
About 1870 the honey locust was considered just 
the thing we had long sought after and needed. It 
was planted in the eastern states much more freelv 
than the Osage orange had been used. From obser- 
vation I conclude it has not proved entirely unsatis- 
factory, yet there are more short lines of this fence 
still in existence than of any other throughout New 
York state, and a few of them are in good condition 
as fences. 

Next to the Osage orange and honey locust, the 
buckthorn, although less robust, makes a fairly good 
live fence. It has the advantage of being more 
beautiful in growth than the Osage orange and less 
savage in its thorns than the locust. It is possible 
to tolerate a buckthorn fence very near your house. 

In preparing the soil for a hedge fence it should 
be thoroughly cultivated for a width of at least three 
or four feet. The ridges that are made by the plov/ 
should be thrown toward the center. In stiff soils 
this may be advantageously done in autumn by 
throwing the furrows on each side from the center 
of the hedge line. This will enable the frosts to 
penetrate, and loosen the soil and the subsoil. A 
little preparation in spring and you are ready for 
planting. 

If it is desired to create a fence for immediate 
use, set your plants from twelve to fifteen inches 
apart, and in a single row. But if the object of the 
fence is to turn animals, and the desire is to have a 



6 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

long-lived and perfect fence, set your plants at least 
two feet apart. If the land be dry and high, it is 
as well to plant in the fall; perhaps, indeed, this is 
preferable; but on low and wet soils, by all means 
defer until spring; although the ground should be 
under preparation, as I have stated. 

A perfect live fence depends, however, not only 
upon the planting, but also upon the treatment it 
receives during its early years of growth. It should 
in all cases be sharply cut l:)ack to uniform bight at 
the very outset. As a rule, two-thirds of the wood 
should be cut away by this first pruning. After the 
first year, the object of pruning should be to broaden 
the base about one-third as fast as the top is raised. 
When the fence is grown to a bight of six feet the 
base should be at least four feet. All pruning must 
be directed to the establishment of this pyramidal 
form. Supposing the young plants to be cut back 
to five or six inches from the ground at the first 
pruning, during the first summer they should be cut 
back so as to increase the bight not to exceed two 
inches. There will always be a tendency to throw 
up a few very strong stems, and these will draw the 
strength from others, so that if not checked they will 
very speedily ruin your fence. These stronger shoots 
should be kept well in hand, cutting them back so 
that they will break their force into several shoots 
in line with the fence. In fact, the application of 
common sense must be continuous through the first 
year's growth of your fence. Bear in mind simply 
that the object is to create a pyramidal form and to 
compel the side shoots to form thickly near the 
ground. The failure with live fences has always 



LIVE FENCES. 7 

laid at this point, that farmers have not been dis- 
posed to give their hedges sufficient attention to keep 
them in proper style of growth. If such attention 
can be secured for the first four years, the fence will 
need comparatively little attention thereafter. 

When the live fence is intended to serve also as 
windbreak, and the enclosure is for horses and sheep, 
it is possible to use evergreens. Where cattle are to 
be enclosed, evergreens would be speedily torn and 
their beauty destroyed, if not their utility. However, 
I know highly valuable windbreaks of spruce and 
others of arbor-vitae that are as stout as if built of 
oak posts and hemlock boards. It takes twenty 
years to get such a fence well grown. The plants 
should be set two or two and one-half feet apart. 
Growth will gradually close up the spaces so as to 
present a nearly solid wall at the base. A close park 
can be created of this sort, as a deer enclosure, or for 
ordinary farm stock. Meanwhile the fence is serv- 
ing a much better purpose as windbreak. But of 
this topic I am to speak more distinctively in another 
chapter of this book. 

About 1870, stock laws began to be passed by 
the states compelling every citizen to fence in his 
own animals, and not to fence out those of his neigh- 
bors. These laws, although at first met with bitter 
opposition, proved to be so just and economical that 
by 1880 they were nearly universal. A few states 
made them optional to the vote of counties ; but while 
this gave conservatism a chance to discuss, the result 
was overwhelming in favor of the new system. It 
was established that New York alone saved $150,- 
000,000 in fencing material, and Missouri was 



8 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

estimated to save at least $90,000,000. It was a dis- 
tinct triumph of progressive agriculture. A secon- 
dary result was to greatly decrease the call for 
material for live fences. The use of wire had already 
begun and shortly completed the revolution. From 
that time, about 1885, the enthusiasm for live fences 
waned. I have not seen such a fence planted in 
central New York during the last twenty years. It 
is only in conjunction with hedges and windbreaks 
that the live fence topic remains of any importance. 
I shall be excused if I give to this branch of my topic 
only this brief chapter. 

Confirmatory of my own views of live fences, 
I shall give at this point two or three letters from 
some of the most eminent horticulturists of the 
United States: 

Ithaca, N. Y. 
Dear Mr. Pozvell: — 

Hedge fences, or live fences, are no longer used to any 
great extent in America, so far as my observation goes ; and 
there are several reasons for it. The chief of these is, I think, 
that timber has become so very cheap ; another is that labor is 
high priced, and another that our distances are so great that 
the expense of putting in live fences has proved to be con- 
siderable. Perhaps the dry and severe climate has something 
to do with it. I presume the national taste or temper also has 
an influence! Hedges are used for small effects about build- 
ings, but it is comparatively rare that they are used for the 
main fences of the farm. In fact, fences are no longer looked 
upon as necessary features 01 the farm. They are liable to 
be in the way of the requirements of grazing changes. The 
farmer is no longer obliged in New York state to keep up his 
line fence. Yours very truly, L. H. Bailey. 

Germantown, Pa. 
Dear Mr. Pozvell: — 

Live fences as means of turning cattle have been practically 
abandoned in Pennsylvania, but as fences for ornament they 
are very popular. Some little is being done by combinations 
of galvanized wire and inclined Osage orange fastened to the 



LIVE FENCES. 



wire, as a protective fence; but the ignorance of sound prin- 
ciples in pruning, which has had much to do with the failure 
of live fences, will soon leave these combinations as inverted 
broomsticks turned over by the wind. For all our literature, 
I am ashamed to say that sound horticultural knowledge has 
not thoroughly prospered in the United States. 

Sincerely yours, Thos. Meehan. 



Grand Rapids, Mich. 
My Dear Mr, Poivcll:— 

There are constant reminders of the wave theory of ac- 
counting for almost everything in the universe. We had a 
wave of planting live fences along in the seventies — a regular 
tidal wave. But after a few years we began to feel very tired 
over the results, and the digging-out process is still going on. 
The hedge fence is entirely unsuited to the American farmer. 
He will not give it the attention necessary to make it effective 
as a fence, and when it does not accomplish that purpose he 
has no use for it. Osage orange was used mostly in our sec- 
tion, but there are relics of honey locust fences occasionally 
to be found. In some places where windbreaks are desired, 
the Osage is still retained and is quite effective although 
for this purpose alone other plants are more desirable. In a 
few places in our state the white willow was sold by enter- 
prising agents, and the farmers were deluded into the belief 
that in ten years they would become a stock barrier. Of course, 
for fencing purposes, the willow was a failure ; yet many miles 
of these willows have done good service in holding snow on 
wheat fields during trying seasons. My own opinion of hedge 
fences is that they do not add to the attractiveness of the 
country. Compared with wire they are expensive. If allowed 
to grow high they hide the landscape, and give an air of 
exclusiveness that is un-American. Fences are growing un- 
popular, and the meanest fence to get rid of is the hedge fence. 
• Cordially yours, Chas. W. Garfield. 

There may be, however, some people who still 
desire to plant live fences, and I desire in this brief 
chapter to give to such all the information that is 
requisite. I shall therefore close the discussion by 
giving- a short and admirable paper by Robert C. 
McMurtrie of Philadelphia — in its entirety. It is 
the best brief statement 1 have ever seen for dealing 
with the Osage orange. 



lO HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS^ ETC. 

OSAGE ORANGE FENCES. 

Raising Plants. — The seed can generally be 
purchased of any seedsman. I soaked the seeds in 
water for forty-eight hours before planting. When 
treated thus they sprouted almost as freely as could 
be desired. Those not soaked came up sparsely and 
very badly. 

The ground was prepared as for ordinary gar- 
den seeds. The seed was placed in rows, about one 
foot apart and about one inch deep. I kept the 
plants carefully weeded from their first appearance 
till the autumn. The result has been that plants 
raised one spring are fit for setting out as hedges 
the next spring. 

Preparing Ground for tJic Hedge. — In the 
autumn the line of the ground on which the hedge 
is to stand is dug as a trench, about eighteen inches 
wide and one foot deep. The earth is laid on the 
side of the trench and the bottom broken with a pick. 
In that condition I left it during the winter for the 
frost to do its work. 

Cultivating or Tilling. — In the spring when 
the ground is warm enough to cause the plants to 
show the first symptoms of life, by pushing, I put a 
quantity of the best barnyard manure in the trench 
or ditch, and on that placed the loose earth left lying 
at the side during the winter. In this ground the 
plants were placed. If in two rows, eighteen inches 
apart ; if in one row, nine inches apart. The latter, 
I am inclined to think from experience, is the best for 
every purpose. 

The plants thus set out were kept carefully 



LIVE FENCES. II 

weeded and cultivated all summer. They sprouted 
slowly and very irregularly. But these were plants 
purchased. Those I grew were much quicker and 
more uniform. By the end of July nearly every 
plant was growing. In one instance, by count, I 
found but two out of two hundred and eighty failed. 

Subsequent Treatment. — In the autumn, the 
plants treated as above stated had grown, in single 
stems, from three to six feet high, depending on the 
earlier or later start. The stems were quite thick. 

These I laid down without cutting-, nicking- or 
breaking, by simply bending them nearly flat to the 
ground and weaving them as one would osiers in 
wicker work. There is little elasticity but great 
toughness in the wood, and the thorns secure them 
in place, when bent and woven, without tying or any 
other sort of fastening. 

The next year the hedge started with an average 
hight of six inches from the ground, or the stems 
thus lying laterally along the ground. The leaf buds 
sent up shoots similar to those of the first year, but 
thicker and higher; many grew eight feet. The 
ground was cultivated with a hoe and weeded. In 
the autumn these stems were again laid down, with- 
out nicking, breaking or cutting. This made a 
hedge of lateral stems about eighteen inches from 
the ground. 

The next summer the shoots grew, the upright 
ones much more vigorously than the laterals. When 
the upright shoots reached three feet or more I cut 
the tops with a sickle at the hight I determined. 
This was repeated at intervals, whenever there were 
a few inches above the line determined, from time 



12 HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS^ SHELTERS^ ETC. 

to time, as the liight of the hedge. This permitted 
the shorter and weaker stems to grow without check- 
ing till they reached the proper line. 

The result was, that in the third summer from 
setting out the plants there was a good hedge, suffi- 
cient to turn ordinary cattle, as it seemed. Cer- 
tainly in all subsequent years it was impervious to 
man or beast. And it had a foundation as firm 
as a fence. 

Cfitting. — If this is done when the plants are 
young, they are so succulent that an amateur can 
readily trim two hundred feet in an hour, and feel 
no fatigue. 

Laying Down. — I have this year adopted a plan 
that I deem a great improvement, and I have done 
it with stems varying from a quarter to an inch in 
diameter, thus : I cut off with nippers a number of 
stems to the hight of two fret, so that the stems, left 
at each end of the cutting, when laid down and woven 
into the upright cut stems, would cross each other, 
and give at least two lines of lateral stems, passing 
in and out of the cut stems, thus giving a living 
fence of about two feet high. I expect to trim the 
growth from these next summer to about three feet 
high, leaving the laterals to grow with little or no 
trimming, to form the hedge into the pyramidical 
form ; which is essential, as lower branches will not 
flourish if upper branches overhang them. 

If anyone can show more perfect fences that 
have thus been produced, I have yet to see or hear 
of them. 



CHAPTER IL 

DECIDUOUS HEDGES. 

The satisfaction with which we dismiss hve 
fences is more than doubled by the gratification 
derived from the study of hedges; whether those 
strictly for ornament or those for utility as well as 
ornament. It is a confirmation of the belief that 
horticultural taste is developing in America, that 
hedges are growing in popularity. In all parts of 
the country the demand for plants is increasing ; and 
this book will find its more specific use in giving all 
required information on the planting, growth and 
management of this department of horticulture. I 
shall be compelled in this chapter to refer to some 
material developed in the previous chapter; because 
the thorns, the Osage orange and the honey locust 
may be used for beautiful as well as discordant pur- 
poses — and so need not be discarded from our beau- 
tiful plantations. 

SECTION I MATERIAL. 

There is no mistaking the conviction of farmers 
that where a hedge is needed the gleditschia or honey 
locust hedge is more satisfactory than the maclura 
or Osage orange. I find very few hedges of the 
latter in even tolerable condition, but many of the 
former. The gleditschia should not be allo\ved to 

13 



14 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 




FIG. 2. EVERGREEN HEDGE BORDERING DRIVES. 



DECIDUOUS HEDGES. 1 5 

grow over two to three feet in hight, if yow expect 
it to keep good form. The tendency is very strong 
to die out at the bottom, and expand the top hmbs. 
When this is allowed, there are sure to follow gaps 
in the outline of the foliage. The Osage orange has 
this one advantage, that it is free of insects, and in 
the hedge form I have found it to be entirely hardy 
in central New York. It is not given to suckering 
unless cut down, when it does incline to be trouble- 
some by filling the ground. I have no doubt that 
both the plants will for some time to come be favor- 
ites with the farmer. He cannot divest himself of 
the sentiment that whatever he does must have more 
or less of utility in its purpose. He will undertake 
to have his hedges of some direct value besides orna- 
ment. Nevertheless, I advise hedge planters to dis- 
card both the maclura and the gleditschia, because 
they are very liable to get out of complete command, 
and so become merely thorny, irregular and homely 
nuisances. 

The pyracantha thorn as a hedge plant has the 
advantage that it is not only capable of resisting 
cattle and even turning hogs and sheep and fowls, 
but its growth is compact and so close to the ground 
that it is easily managed. The southern or red- 
fruited pyracantha is not quite hardy at the north, 
while the white-fruited is entirely hardy as far north 
as New York. I find its foliage blisters somewhat 
and the ends of the twigs are sometimes killed in 
central New York. I can hardly conceive a pyra- 
cantha hedge looking very badly from neglect. 
When not somewhat blistered by the frost it keeps 
green all winter. My own plants blossom not unfre- 



l6 HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS^, SHELTERS, ETC. 

quently, and yet give me very few seeds. Notwith- 
standing the sHght damage done by frost, I think it 
fair to recommejid this thorn as a very good hedge 
plant as far north as the lower counties of New York 
state. It will work admirably also to fill in larger 
gaps that occur in larger hedges. 

This thorn is not a native, but was introduced 
from Germany by Parsons and company, about i860. 
It is grown readily from cuttings, which is the only 
practicable method of multiplying it, owing to its shy 
seeding. Bear in mind, however, that the pyra- 
cantha is very thorny. It is ornamental if you do 
not get too near it. Its place is on small farms or 
fruit-growing homesteads, where it is desirable to 
prevent the too free movement of fowls.. It would 
be just the thing around an exposed fruit yard. A 
thief would never twice try to get over or through it. 
It would not be possible to mutilate the hedge or cut 
a passage in a hurry. 

The thorn genus has been very generally used 
in America. Before the introduction of the maclura 
the different members of this genus constituted 
nearly all the hedge plants in general use. The 
hawthorn is best known because of its reputation in 
England. The moist climate of that country suits 
it far better than our dry summers. The very hand- 
some foliage is liable, with us, in common with that 
of other thorns, to mildew and turn black soon 
after the period of flowering. It is a very long- 
lived plant ; Loudon says that it lives to be 
one hundred or two hundred years old. Among 
our more common shrubs and trees it has no rival 
in age, except perhaps the apple and pear. Of 



DECIDUOUS HEDGES. I7 

the apple, I have on my ground specimens that 
are one hundred and ten years old. These were 
planted when the Iroquois were still in posses- 
sion of central New York. Pear trees are known in 
Michigan, planted by the French, as long ago as the 
founding of Detroit. I do not know of any haw- 
thorn bushes in this country that are very old, but 
in England the record is fully two hundred years. 
Growing wild, the hawthorn is almost always found 
as a dense bush, somewhat like wild apples. This 
is owing to the fact that cattle have browsed the 
young trees and made them dwarf bushes. These are 
the favorite resorts of the sly catbird. On our lawns, 
when well cultivated, the hawthorn grows to about 
twenty feet high, and is covered with delightful 
flowers. It takes cions of pear and apple as it is 
a member of the rose family. All the tall grow- 
ing varieties are much alike in shape and vigor 
and growth. In our nurseries are to be found sev- 
eral beautiful sports and crosses. Among these are 
Paul's double scarlet, the tansy-leaved, the black- 
fruited, the glossy-leaved, Gumpper's and the double 
white. Many of these I have found growing wild 
in our forest edges and glens, probably the result of 
seed sown by the birds. All of these varieties are 
equally useful for hedges. 

The cockspur thorn is more commonly used in 
this country than the hawthorn, or any other thorn, 
except the black or buckthorn. It has a single sharp 
spur under the leaf, like the spur of a cock. In the 
West I have seen these growing wild in most pic- 
turesque and delightful forms. It only needed man's 
hand to arrange and control their growth, in order 
2 



1 8 HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS^ SHELTERS^ ETC. 

to create a work of great beauty. They spread out 
their heads densely compacted, and if undisturbed 
they will touch the ground with their overhanging 
limbs. When browsed by sheep they form a won- 
derful canopy over wide patches of the pastures, 
where these animals lie down out of reach of the 
sun's rays. There are many varieties, characterized 
by form of leaves and color and by size of bush. 
They are, everyone, admirable for hedge work. 

The honey locust deserves a few additional 
words owing to the peculiar beauty of its foliage. 
Its thorns are the most perfect weapons known in 
nature, but unfortunately they are dangerous. When 
broken from the hedge they cannot be stepped upon 
with impunity by man or beast. The trimmings are 
not easily gathered and removed, yet they should be 
not only removed but burned. It will not do to 
throw them into refuse holes or brush piles — espe- 
cially not by the roadside. Notwithstanding the 
beauty of the plant and its usefulness as a hedge, the 
danger from its thorns is so great that I believe, as a 
rule, it should be given up. I have not in my own 
range of observation known of a single rod of gle- 
ditschia hedge that remains in preservation. I have 
seen miles of it planted, and miles of it gone wild 
and unmanageable. When once out of hand it can 
never be reduced to order and beauty. It is as much 
as a man's life is worth to undertake such a task. 
I go so far as to refuse to allow even a tree of this 
brutal thorn to grow on my land. 

There is. however, a thornless variety of gle- 
ditschia, very little disseminated, which will surely 
make a remarkably strong and beautiful hedge. I 



DECIDUOUS HEDGES. 1 9 

obtained my seed from Kansas, but some of the prod- 
ucts have more or less of thorn. I have now grow- 
ing one superb tree which is absolutely thornless. 
It has the exquisite leaf beauty of the thorny variety, 
its fine foliage, and is what no other tree is even 
comparatively, a sifter of the moonbeams, a most 
elegant tree for night scenery. Apart from the 
gnawing of mice in the winter, I see no reason why 
this plant should not be very valuable for hedges on 
our choicest lawns. It has the most remarkable 
combination of strength and compact growth with 
beauty. It is also a very rapid grower, while it en- 
dures the severest cutting. I am inclined to think 
the plants should stand at least two feet apart, and 
a good deal of care be taken to have them of nearly 
equal vigor of stem and root in planting. Even if 
it be desired to have the hedge turn back animals, I 
think we have here a very promising plant. 

Michaux, who was as capital a landscape econo- 
mist as he was a botanist, called attention to the value 
of the scrub oak (Querais ilicifolia), sometimes 
called the bear oak, as a material at hand in New 
Jerse3^ and elsewhere in sandy soils, for hedges. He 
says : "The presence of this oak is considered an 
infallible index of a barren soil, and is usually met 
with on dry, sandy land mingled wnth gravel. It is 
too small to be adapted to any use, but near Goshen 
on the road to New York I observed an attempt to 
turn it to advantage, by planting it about the fields 
for the purpose of strengthening the fences. Though 
this experiment seemed to have failed, I believe the 
bear oak might be usefully adopted in the Northern 
states for hedges, which might be formed from 



20 HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS^ SHELTERS, ETC. 

twenty to twenty-four inches thick by sowing the 
acorns in three parallel rows. They would be per- 
fected in a short time, would be agreeable to the eye, 
and would probably be sufficient to prevent the pass- 
age of horses and cows.'' The plant is an abundant 
bearer of seed, yet I do not know that the suggestion 
of Michaux has been put to test. But nature has 
used the scrub oak very freely in making wild hedges 
of great beauty. The chief advantage of such sug- 
gestions is to teach us to keep our eyes open to the 
possibilities about us, and be ready to put an old 
thing to a new use. A wide-awake mind is never at a 
loss to find a chance to exercise a creative purpose. A 
person blind to nature is always compelled to follow 
in old routine tracks, and so misses some of the finest 
opportunities that nature affords him. 

Among the newer shrubs and trees available for 
hedges we may enumerate the Siberian Pea tree 
(Caragana arbor csccns). This is a small tree, grow- 
ing from fifteen to eighteen feet in hight, but it bears 
pruning admirably well. It is hardy even to the very 
northern limits of our states and Canada, at the same 
time endures severe drouths. I think this will prove 
to be a desirable addition to our hedge plants. The 
Kei apple is another importation of our Department 
of Agriculture which promises to be of considerable 
use to us. It is the best South African hedge plant ; 
and becomes, if untrimmed, only a tall shrub. It 
may be ranked among tht strictly ornamental 
hedge plants. 

However, I do not myself believe there is any 
deciduous plant anywhere near equal to the buck- 
thorn (or black thorn) for universal use as a decidu- 



DECIDUOUS HEDGES. 21 

ous hedge plant. I place it at the front, as I shall 
hereafter place arbor-vitse at the front of evergreen 
plants for hedges. It grows with an even spread 
and bears rational cutting admirably. It has no 
enemy that I ever heard of except the hop louse, 
which it is compelled to harbor for a couple of 
months. This louse does not appear every year, 
and if properly attacked it can be destroyed with a 
spray of strong kerosene emulsion. Although not 
a thorny or harsh plant, the buckthorn is very firm 
in growth. I have already spoken of its capacity, 
in a previous chapter, for turning cattle, when it is 
allowed to grow six or eight feet high. At that 
hight it is also a very handsome screen, but for ordi- 
nary purposes a hedge of four to six feet is much 
better. At this hight it is easily trimmed, and the 
form of the hedge can always be kept without 
trouble. The growth is neat and tidy, if not remark- 
ably handsome. When neglected, it can be cut back 
to renew its form without injuring the hedge, and it 
does not become at any time, under the worst neg- 
lect, as horrible a sight and as terrible a nuisance as 
neglected Osage orange or honey locust. In fact, 
I have seldom seen a buckthorn row given up. Even 
when neglected and practically useless as a fence, the 
owner is inclined to keep it as a hedge. 

I find, after careful examination, that among the 
farmers of the Eastern and Middle states, the hedges 
which have been best preserved and most useful are 
(i) the buckthorn, (2) the gleditschia or locust. I 
find also that the buckthorn is invariably in the best 
form as a hedge; although I judge that the thorn 
has done the most service. The latter is, however, 




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DECIDUOUS HEDGES. 23 

in no case that I know, presentable as a landscape 
ornament. Invariably it has become scraggy, gappy 
and very uneven. Most of the hedges that are 
retained are evidently pieces, where most of the origi- 
nal planting has died away. I asked a farmer why 
he kept a rather disreputable strip in front of his 
homestead. He answered that, bad as it looked, it 
hid his yard, which looked worse. It is not impos- 
sible that a good many others feel like this, and 
choose the street hedge as a cover for nasty habits. 
Therefore, I say once more, down with street hedges 
or street fences, alive or dead. 

There is the common trouble in growing Osage 
orange and gleditschia that mice will gnaw them in 
the winter. They frequently girdle a large number 
of plants in a single season. Where it is desirable 
to grow a short strip for ornamental purposes, or for 
landscape use, the intrusion of these rodents can be 
in part prevented by keeping from about the roots 
any refuse or grass, and raking away the leaves 
before winter sets in. Besides this, I would recom- 
mend in October or November a good mulch of coal 
ashes. It has been recommended to scatter along 
the hedge, peas soaked in arsenic to poison the mice. 
Any ill-smelling stuff is an additional protection. 
But I believe that coal ashes will always prove the 
best preventive, while it is at the same time a grand 
weed killer. There has been a very substantial error 
about this material in the minds of the people. 
Because it is in a very small degree a direct fertilizer 
does not argue that any material may not help roots 
to take manure from the air. This is exactly the 
office performed by coal ashes. It lightens clay soil, 



24 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

and helps it to absorb nitrogen. The soil under a 
mulch of coal ashes will be found to be friable and 
rich. I have seen the most barren ground made into 
a rich garden with nothing but coal ashes forked in 
in considerable quantity. I use it about young apple 
trees to prevent the borer from working ; it is equally 
good about all other trees that are occasionally 
attacked by boring insects. You will make no mis- 
take in using anthracite coal ash about your hedge 
row. You may place it on very heavily, and you 
will find the result will be beneficial in all ways. It 
will at least have checked the working of mice, and 
in almost all cases have prevented it. 

SECTION II PLANTING DECIDUOUS HEDGES. 

(i) Size of Plants. — Whatever the material, T 
prefer two-year-olds or sometimes three-year-olds 
to yearlings. Such plants, to make rapid and satis- 
factory growth, should be stocky to begin with, and 
then cut sharply back. However, when long lines 
are to be run, one-year-old plants will be generally 
planted, and will probably be satisfactory. 

(2) Running Lines. — When drives are to be 
bordered, curves are frequently necessary. In this 
case great care is needed at the outset, for if a mis- 
take is made it is going to show worse and worse as 
long as your hedge exists. My plan is to set small 
stakes over the lines to be followed, and then to 
go over these again and again, until I am quite 
sure that my curves are where they should 
be, to accommodate drives and to satisfy the 
eye. At this point be sure that you do not 



DECIDUOUS HEDGES. 25 

trust a landscape gardener implicitly, for while 
he may be skilled in his selection and grouping 
of plants, he may wholly lack an eye for such lines. 
Many a time such a defect in vision is unknown to its 
possessor. In fifty years of landscape work I have 
never found but one man who could materially assist 
me in working out long and double curves — he was 
a common Irish laborer with a gift. A long sweep- 
ing curve is not easily established and it grows all 
the worse when one curve is to be multiplied by 
another. 

(^) Preparing the Ground. — This is an impor- 
tant point. The ground must be as clean as a gar- 
den and thoroughly tilled into loose friable condition. 
There is no use sticking plants into half-prepared 
soil. Where the sod is tough and vigorous it should 
have been tilled with some hoed crop during the 
previous year. The rotted turf will then make 
excellent soil for hedge planting. Before setting, 
let the soil be thrown, by back furrowing or by the 
spade, toward the center, enough to form a slight 
rise, that will carry off rather than retain water. 
After planting, there will be more or less settling, and 
your ridge will not be perceptible. If you are 
obliged to run through wet places, drain on both 
sides, throwing up the line of the hedge with soil 
from the ditches. 

(4) Setting the Plants. — All tricks and devices 
for saving labor at this point are undesirable, if you 
intend to make sure of your hedge. There must 
be no mistake about the mellowness of the soil, and 
if two-year-old plants are used, a trench must be 
ready along the line of your stakes. If one-year-old 



26 HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS^ SHELTERS, ETC. 

plants are to be set, you may use a spade as you pro- 
ceed, or a dibble. Spread the roots at the bottom of 
the trench, and set the plant two or three inches 
deeper than it was in the nursery row. Firm the 
soil with great care. This is the most important 
point in setting out plants of any kind as well as in 
planting trees. In the case of the hedge plants, it is 
absolutely necessary. I advise you to tramp the soil 
as solid as possible with your feet, or let a man follow 
whose business it is to pound down the soil with a 
heavy rammer. You may be sure that no harm 
will be done. 

(5) Spacing.- — My own preference is decidedly 
for more room for each plant than is generally given. 
When placed six inches apart, many plants in the 
process of growth are dwarfed or weakened in 
vitality, if not killed outright. I set two or three feet 
apart. Dr. Warder recommends this in his book on 
hedges (now out of print) and he did wisely. He 
says : "I consider that most writers and planters have 
committed the great error of crowding. The dif- 
ferent plants used in hedges are so varied in their 
habits that no fixed rule can be laid down for all of 
them, but be sure to avoid setting the plants too 
closely." For the honey locust, which attains in its 
individual growth a diameter of from one to three 
feet. Dr. Warder would prefer a distance of twelve, 
eighteen or twenty inches. I have found this plan 
far better for every plant that I have ever tried or 
seen tried. The honey locust, the hawthorn, the 
buckthorn, the Osage orange and all of the shrubs 
that attain any size, should be given at least one foot 
in the row, and from that up to two or even three. 



DECIDUOUS HEDGES. ^1 

I have suggested requisite room for requisite 
strength and vigor. In other words, every plant 
must have root room in order to make a healthy top. 
I object entirely to the plan of setting plants m 
double rows alternately. There will be trouble 
enough in keeping a well-trimmed hedge withm 
bounds. Therefore, begin with one row of plants. 
Those who argue for close planting do so on the 
ground that gaps will be filled by overhanging hmbs. 
But a rightly managed hedge must not have gaps. 
The whole space should be filled wholly with 
branches interlaced until the wall will be too close 
for us to see through. The question is asked, why 
not set the plants still farther apart, and by bendmg 
down interlacing branches, create a compact wall or 
even impermeable fence? Simply because it would 
require patience and care and labor that would not 
often be given to a hedge, and the result would be, 
in all probability, a failure within two years. Rustic 
walls of the kind suggested, like rustic arbors, are 
the work of time and of genius. They are seldom 
produced in perfection. 

(6) Mulching. — As fast as your hedge plants 
are set they should be mulched. Use whatever 
material is most easily obtainable in your section. 
As a rule, sawdust is most convenient and cheap. 
Others may most readily obtain coal ashes. I have 
referred to the use of this material already. It must 
be understood that reference is made to anthracite 
coal ashes and not to bituminous. The latter mate- 
rial contains too much sulphur to make it safe to use 
in any large amount in our plantations. The coal 
ash from anthracite coal is not only safe but 



28 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

unexcelled in all ways for mulch. It is pervious to 
the air and it retains moisture. It does not permit 
weeds to grow readily, and it keeps clay soils from 
hardening. Use all that you can get, in your com- 
post piles and for mulching. When it is more con- 
venient, fine cut straw or fresh cut grass makes a 
fair substitute; yet it is liable to attract mice, and 
will be blow^n away unless held in place by a sprinkle 
of earth. 

(y) Renewals. — The first year will certainly 
develop gaps in your hedge, whatever care may have 
been used in planting and mulching. These gaps 
should be filled the next spring without fail. It will 
not be easy at best to give these new plants a good 
chance between the older ones. It will be well to 
select as large plants as possible, and to take special 
care in setting and puddling them. Let mulching 
be very carefully and promptly applied. 

(8) Watering. — It frequently occurs, as in set- 
ting trees, that a dry spell follows. Whatever care 
may have been used in thoroughly watering the 
hedge when planted, it will be necessary to keep up 
the supply for some weeks afterward. • At all events, 
the hedge plants must be well started into growth, 
and the young rootlets be well developed before they 
are given over to nature. Watering is always a 
science. As it is usually performed it kills more 
than it benefits. It should never be superficial, for 
that will solidify the soil and then bake a crust, from 
which the showers wall flow quickly off. Tin's 
crust also prevents the natural absorption of mois- 
ture from the air. To water correctly, dig a hole 
by the side of every tree or bush, and ])our in enough 



t DECIDUOUS HEDGES. 29 

water to wet the roots thoroughly. This will require 
a good deal of labor, but when once performed it 
need not be frequently repeated. After the water 
is poured in and has settled, draw over a little dry 
soil to prevent evaporation. In this way the soil 
becomes permeated, and remains wet. This is the 
rule for all plants. Pour a quart for a strawberry, 
pour a pailful for a tree. For a hedge it may be 
best to run a furrow on each side and pour the water 
in the trough. Then haul back the soil to cover with 
the plow. If you have a well near by, attach a hose 
and let the trench be filled by pumping. But to 
throw water with a hose through a sprinkler 
over the soil is worse than nothing. It requires 
almost continuous sprinkling to make this method 
of watering of any value, even for a lawn of 
grass. 

(p) Trimming. — I have suggested that plants 
should be cut back when set. This matter of trim- 
ming is one of the most important, from first to last. 
It is requisite to get a thick bottom to the hedge, and 
to do this, in almost all cases, the plants must be cut 
nearly to the base the first year, and compelled to 
spread laterals. Cut down to the collar, making the 
branching start out so that the lower limbs will lie 
upon the ground. If you have followed directions 
you have set your plants two or three inches deeper 
than where they were as seedlings. It will now be 
your object to keep the hedge from growing upward, 
and make it spread out and keep its lower limbs vital. 
This is the constant aim in hedge-growing. The 
law of nature, that a tree shall climb upward, and as 
it climbs take away a part of the strength of the 



30 HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

lower l)ranches to make new ones above, must be 
held in check. 

Where hedges have to serve partly for utility, 
in turning hens or possibly larger creatures, impene- 
trability must be sought for. Your wish is to divide 
vitality and distribute the growth evenly to all 
branches. A perfect hedge is as strong in one point 
as in another. To secure this requires that there be 
no neglect during the first three years after planting. 
No part must get the advantage. Then after your 
hedge is well established, if neglected for a year or 
two, the balance will be broken ; and a few branches 
will have surmounted the rest, while a part will have 
died out altogether. 

Most of the deciduous hedges as they grow 
require trimming twice a year. This should be done 
in May, and at such time later as growth may indicate 
necessity. The buckthorn, as a rule, should be cut 
the second time in July or August. When the 
growth has been checked by drouth I have sometimes 
trimmed as late as September. When first planted, 
and until well shaped, I trim three times or even 
more, being regulated solely by the rapidity of 
growth. Nearly all deciduous hedges have a habit, 
while young, of sending out a shoot here and there 
of unusual strength. These must not be allowed to 
get much start, or they will have accomplished a good 
deal very quickly in the way of weakening other 
shoots. It must, however, be remembered con- 
stantly that, if you trim a hedge very late in the 
season, there will be a growth put forth that will not 
have time to ripen its wood, and you will get winter- 
killing of even very hardy plants. 



DECIDUOUS HEDGES. 31 

The shape of a deciduous hedge should be abou^ 
that of a very young bush of the same plant where 
it stands wild. It should have a broad base and rise 
to a round top — never to a sharp or pointed top — 
and equally never to a flattened top. The hawthorn, 
and particularly the buckthorn, submit to a very neat 
oval shaping, but should have the lower branches a 
little longer than the others. The Osage orange is 
not so submissive to form, but it may be kept reason- 
ably in bounds if never given any freedom. The 
pyramidal form is an outrage on nature, because it 
is never undertaken with deciduous plants in their 
native state. In all cases avoid artifice and the arti- 
ficial; follow nature's outlines, and heed nature's 
suggestions. 

Whatever may be said of special tools for more 
rapid cutting, nothing is so satisfactory as the long- 
handled hedge-shears. The blades of these should 
be fifteen to twenty inches long. If trniiming is 
done coarsely it will tell, in the process of the years, 
in an ungainly hedge. For cutting strong branches 
it is necessary also to have what are called hedge- 
clippers. These are short curved shears with handles 
three feet long. They will sever a half-inch branch 
readily. For ordinary trimming these are not 
needed, but will be of importance w^hen the hedge 
is to be cut back, or when from neglect a hedge has 
to be reshaped. The same tools are useful for much 
other work about trees and shrubbery. They should 
be kept sharp so that one-half of power may be saved 
in using them. Dull tools of all sorts will be found 
a dead loss. They use up wastefully a large part of 
your power, and all of your patience and good cheer. 



32 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

Successful horticulture is a happy combination of 
wit and grit. Failure in farming is mostly the result 
of leakage of power and waste of crops. However, 
when economy of time is very greatly desired, the 
trimming of the first three or four years can be per- 
formed with a sickle. Give a quick motion in the 
way the branch grows — that is, with a slant upward. 
Hold the sickle reversed and strike sharp and quick ; 
a slow movement will drag the br?inch. This tool 
is satisfactory for all fairly strong and stiff shoots. 
But as the hedge gets shaped, and the shoots 
become finer, they require more smooth and 
accurate cutting. Bear in mind that T do not 
recommend the use of such tools, but by all 
means would prefer the shears. 

Can the spring pruning of a deciduous hedge be 
as well done in midwinter, or March ? I can only an- 
swer this with a very positive negative, when you are 
dealing with an evergreen hedge, but it may be 
advantageously done in the case of such plants as 
buckthorn, hawthorn and Osage orange. There is 
no reason why a sharp heading-in of a thoroughly 
hardy plant shall not take place at any time after 
nature has laid aside her tools, and the hedge is in a 
state of absolute rest. I would not, however, begin 
the work before near the close of winter. There is 
one advantage in following this line of advice, 
because you can observe more completely the condi- 
tion of the leafless branches, and determme where 
nature is being too sharply turned or forced from 
her natural tendency. Where there is a mere bunch 
of twigs starting instead of a good number of 
branches, remove part of them. This is always a 



DECIDUOUS HEDGES. 00 



possible mischief when we crowd a tree down to 
bush growth. 

(lo) Cultivation. — Do not plow close to a 
hedge, with the idea of benefiting it. Nearly all 
plants' that make good hedges do so largely because 
they make a great mass of surface roots, and most 
of these form a close network of roots. These 
should not be ripped up by plow or hoe. If you wish 
a stout hedge you must give it root room. I would 
not plow within six feet of a well-established hedge. 
Outside of this line I would keep the ground clear 
and forbid the hedge getting a grip on it. 

It is, however, superfluous to undertake direc- 
tions minute enough for every conceivable difficulty. 
I have covered the ground sufficiently to lead the 
amateur workman out of the way of easily made 
mistakes. The general direction is, use common 
sense. You will easily master all the difficulties of 
horticulture in that way, and in no other. Study the 
situation and do what you think is wise under the 
circumstances. You will find hints always ready 
for you if you are ready to heed them. 

(ii) Cost. — No estimate of cost can be any- 
thing more than approximate, as cultivation, seed, 
cost of plants, cost of labor, will vary everywhere 
and all the time. Professor Turner some years ago 
estimated that, while the cheapest wood fence would 
cost $300 a mile, his four miles of hedging did not 
altogether cost over $100, which would be $25 a 
mile. ''Here, then, is a clear difference of $275 per 
mile, or say v$iooo in the cost of four miles when first 
put upon the ground. The annual interest of $1000 
would hire a good young man to tend the hedges for 

3 



34 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS^ ETC. 

five months in the year. But instead of requiring 
a hand five months a year, it does not require sucli 
help for one month even in the most laborious part 
of the work, and after the third or fourth year it 
does not require the half of that." Professor Turner 
was always an enthusiast, and I quote him only as 
able to show the rosy side of hedge-growing. 

The first cost of a hedge of Osage orange would 
in most soils be at the present time more than three 
times the above estimate. Nor is it in the least desir- 
able to underestimate the real cost of hedging, which 
is not in the outlay for plants and for planting, but 
is in the subsequent care and pruning. Professor 
Turner made his estimates with the understanding 
that his pruning was to be done with a sickle and 
rapid slashing. The chief trouble seems to be that 
the hedge will not allow of delays such as the farmer 
often feels to be imperative. The season of trim- 
ming passes by, and the rank growth gets difficult to 
handle. Then the owner thinks he may as well 
defer still longer before giving a sharp cut. In a 
couple of years the hedge is a ferocious, thorny 
defiance to approach, and the chances are that it will 
never 1)e reduced to subjection by the owner. Then 
comes a hard job, and a costly one, of cutting the 
whole thing down to the ground for a new start. 
The brush must be burned, and is a bad job to 
handle. On the whole T think we must let the esti- 
mates of Professor Turner stand as fairly good for 
live fences, but of little value for hedges such as we 
are now discussing. Henry Shaw's estimate of 
the cost of a deciduous hedge is" from twenty- 
five to fifty cents a rod. As a matter of fact 



DECIDUOUS HEDGES. 35 

our ornamental and semi-ornamental hedges will 
cost double that. 

(12) Devices. — The use of wire with hedges 
is a combination of considerable value under certain 
conditions. It serves to make an ornamental hedge 
able to hold back an animal that happens to break 
loose. I have found it equally useful against inter- 
lopers and fruit thieves. The wire may be entirely 
concealed by skillful interweaving through the 
branches of the hedge. I have known of such a 
hedge, wdien somewhat dilapidated, being used as a 
background or trellis for climbing roses. These 
almost entirely covered the original hedge and 
became an object of remarkable beauty. 

We are not shut out entirely from devices for 
wet land. I never saw a willow hedge of much use 
except where it ran along by wet places. Yet a close 
grove of willows makes a splendid protection against 
the northwest. Let such a hedge pass on into the 
form of a windbreak, and then front it with a row 
of red bark dogwood, a bush which remarkably 
enjoys itself in marshy ground. Plant it freely and 
you will say that of all hedges in winter it is the most 
beautiful. As the leaves fall in autumn the bark 
turns a beautiful crimson, and retains a warm glow 
throughout the winter. Nothing in the shrubbery 
equals it for contrast with the unbroken white of the 
snow. A single bush will grow only to a hight of 
ten feet, and fifteen feet in diameter. It does not, 
therefore, need any severe cutting or pruning. For 
a moist swale it is just the thing, but it will grow 
finely on a dry knoll, (^nly much more slowly, and 
not to above half the size. 



36 HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS^ SHELTERS^ ETC. 

Either have a good hedge, or none at all. A 
poor hedge is unsightly and a nuisance. If by the 
roadside, and untrimmed or poorly trimmed, it 
scratches the pedestrian who passes by, and in wet 
weather it brushes him with its wet branches. If 
bordering a drive it disgraces the owner instead of 
honoring him. If I were to sum up this section, I 
should say that, under ordinary conditions, I should 
prefer the buckthorn for the general purposes which 
I have indicated, and as likely to endure all the 
provocations likely to be inflicted upon it by care- 
lessness and negligence. 

Note I. — It may be necessary to add a note on 
winter injury to hedges. This will rarely if ever 
occur where the wood has not been weakened by too 
late or improper trimming. A very thorough report 
on hedges injured during the winter of 1898 says: 
*'The neglected hedges, that is, those having one 
year's growth or more on the old stalks, came out 
universally alive. On a new purchase of 240 acres 
I had some three miles of untrimmed hedge, a con- 
siderable part of which had been neglected for some 
years. We trimmed about 100 rods in January, just 
before the noted cold spell ; this was badly injured. 
The remainder was trimmed after March ist, and 
made a fine new growth. Ninety per cent of our 
hedges throughout this section are dead, and this 
much is certain, that the hedge not trimmed during 
the winter or just previous to the winter is all right." 
From personal observation I am satisfied that winter- 
killing may be in all cases traced to enfeeblement of 
the plants by improper trunming. 

Note 2. — Kerosene emulsion, for spraying 



DECIDUOUS HEDGES. 



37 



liedges infested with lice, should always be kept on 
hand. It is made by dissolving one pound of hard 
soap in one gallon of hot water; to this add three 



gallons of kerosene. 



Churn together with a force 



pump for ten minutes, or until the materials are 
thoroughly assimilated into a mass, semi-fluid, and 
much like the best soft soa]). Store this for usage, 
and it will keep for several weeks or months. When 
needed, use about one pint to a pail of water. If 
this solution does not prove strong enough to kill the 
lice, double the quantity of the emulsion. Let the 
spray be applied as soon as the lice appear, and so 
thoroughly, that the undersides of the leaves will be 
well wetted. Use the McGowan nozzle, adjusted to 
any good spraying pump. 




FIG. 4. GROUND PLAN OF SUBURBAN HOME, WITH 
FRUIT GARDEN. 



CHAPTER III. 

HEDGES FOR SMALL LAWNS, OR FOR DIVIDING LAWNS; 
AND WITHOUT SPECIAL REGARD TO UTILITY. 

The distinction which I here draw between 
hedges strictly ornamental and those which are both 
ornamental and useful, is one that cannot be strictly 
carried out, for every hedge is useful and every hedge 
ought to be ornamental. Yet there is a distinction 
which owners of landscape gardens thoroughly 
appreciate. 

SECTION I MATERIAL. 

In the line of deciduous ornamental hedges I 
do not believe that anything can surpass the Tar- 
tarian honeysuckles. These occur in several shades 
of color, and are somewhat varied in vigor of growth. 
The pink-flowering is the most robust, sending up 
strong shoots with great rapidity, and when these 
are injured, renewing them quickly. The red-flow- 
ering is very handsome, and hardly inferior to the 
pink for hedging. The white-flowering is several 
degrees feebler in shoots, and it is less vigorous every 
way. Whichever color is selected, if you wish for 
an even growing hedge, do not select but one color. 
In May the flowering is astonishingly profuse, filling 
the whole air with sweetness. I should like to know 
where one can find a more charmino- sisfht than such 
a hedge in full bloom, unless it be the same hedge 

.^8 



HEDGES FOR SMALL LAWNS. 39 

when loaded with berries in July and August. These 
are of different shades of color, according to the 
color of the flowers. The pink-flowering produces 
a fine carmine berry. Of the value of these berries 
as bird food I shall speak in another place. 

The lilac has some value as a hedge plant, but 
easily grows ugly with age, while the intense suck- 
erinsr tendencv of the plant decreases the blossominq; 
power of the bushes. The Persian lilacs will do much 
the best, provided you have room for them; but a 
good Persian lilac hedge will require from ten to 
fifteen feet in diameter. The show of flowers will 
be inconceivably beautiful during May, and after 
that the bushes are dense enough to make a very 
good windbreak. Set the bushes eight or ten feet 
apart, or if you prefer, set them five feet apart, and 
later remove every other bush. At the best the 
inside branches of any lilac will die out every year, 
and must be carefull}^ removed. Josiksea and Charles 
X are later-blooming varieties, with stout trunks, 
and can be used in the hedge form. Some of the 
more recently developed varieties are far better, but 
at present somewhat costly. I have seen the com- 
mon white lilac used as a hedge, but with nothing to 
recommend it, except that it served as a windbreak, 
and would turn a stray animal. 

The Weigelas are among the prettiest plants 
for hedge rows, but more particularly the variegated- 
leaved sort. This is one of the handsomest of all 
shrubs, as its variegation is clear and bright and 
lasting. It is not in the least sickly in hue, like many 
variegations. It has a drooping but compact form, 
and in florescence is a marvel of beauty. As it is 



40 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

low-growing, I should like it best for a border for 
beds of flowers, or for a winding drive. It rarely 
exceeds four feet in hight, and can be cut to some 
extent. You will especially like it fronted with ? 
line of Dcutzia gracilis. This latter plant will lift 
itself about one foot in hight, and adjust its method 
of growth very closely to that of Weigela. 

Almost any of our best known shrubs make 
ornamental lines when needed to divide gardens or 
to outline fields; not so many of them are suitable 
for bordering drives. It is not a bad plan to grow 
morning glories at the foot of such hedges, and so 
secure a fine autumn blossoming, since most of the 
shrubs blossom in April, May or June. But we 
have two exceedingly fine shrubs blossoming in 
August and September, that can be used with admir- 
able effect, the Hydrangea paniculata grandiflora, 
and the althea, sometimes called Rose of Sharon. 
The former will stand about six to ten feet in hight, 
and show a complete mass of magnificent heads of 
flowers. This bush will endure considerable cut- 
ting, and on the whole should rank, I think, close 
after Tartarian honeysuckle for a strictly ornamental 
hedge. The altheas are of as different styles of 
growth as they are of different colors of bloom. It 
is necessary to select those which grow alike, if one 
desires any uniformity in hedge growth ; and it is 
better in most cases to select the erect growing than 
the spreading. Many of the altheas, perhaps all of 
them, will need protection for the first two years 
from seed, and after that they will be found to be 
entirely hardy as far north as New York. Most of 
the varieties are hardy as far north as Albany. One 



HEDGES FOR SMALL LAWNS. 4I 

variety on my lawns I find objectionable, owing to 
its brittle wood. Still, on the whole, with a little 
extra care, long lines of altheas can hardly be sur- 
passed for beaut}^ during the autumn months. 

I have already si)oken of the beauty of the red- 
barked dogwood as a hedge in winter. To enliven 
the landscape and take the chill from the winter 
months there is nothing quite so good. The color 
becomes a deep crimson in November, and remains 
a brilliant sight for the eye until the leaves put forth 
in spring. It has only one rival, the barberry. 
Although the barberry has often been used for 
hedges, it has one fatal defect, its branches are con- 
stantly reaching over out of place, and breaking with 
readiness. The wood is very brittle, so that it is 
difficult to keep anything like symmetry of outline. 
I should prefer the barberry in individual plants. If 
used in line, I should set the plants several feet apart 
and retain the branches in place with a strong wire 
around each plant. 

Mr. S. B. Parsons of Flushing has, for a long 
time, urged the value of the purple beeches for 
hedges. Some years ago C. H. Miller of Phila- 
delphia called attention to the fact that seed- 
lings of this tree came with purple foliage, 
and were hardier than the parent. There if, 
a good deal of variation in the color, but I 
think he is right about their hardiness. The ordinary 
purple beech is not hardy. The variety called Rivers 
is absolutely frost proof. It is one of the grandest 
trees in existence for a shelter. If you desire a short 
hedge or a hedge to close in a warm nook, the purple 
beech will serxe vou admirablv. It does not easilv 



42 HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

yield ground to a crowding neighbor, nor does it 
die out in spots. 

Those who desire to form an ornamental trellis 
will find nothing to surpass the sweet honeysuckle 
(Loniccra Canadensis) and other varieties of con- 
stant blooming honeysuckles. They should be 
grown to a stout wire trellis, and kept well fed. A 
pretty effect is made by growing alternately the 
sweet and the trumpet honeysuckles. The latter 
variety, however, is mucli the more rapid and robust 
in growth, and likes to climb as high as twenty-five 
feet. It needs close cutting, while both varieties 
require considerable compulsion to correct a wild 
straggling style of growth. The fragrance of the 
honeysuckle, if it does not surpass all other vines, is 
at least unexcelled. It is possible on such trellises 
to combine with the honeysuckle the large-flowering 
clematis. The tall climbing varieties are more suit- 
able for balconies or rockeries. 

The Southern states ha^•e the advantage of 
being able to use for hedges those roses which are too 
tender to grow perfectly in the Northern states. They 
can also make grand hedges of the Chinese privet, 
and of Cape Jasmine, and the Japan Euonymus. 
But imagine a hedge or a windbreak of the broad- 
leaved evergreens! At the North, however, we may 
grow many varieties of roses with enough effect to 
be highly gratifying. I have seen hedges of General 
Jacqueminot, Caroline de Sansal, John Hopper, and 
other hybrid-perpetuals which were certainly mar- 
vels of beauty during the blossoming season. Bui, 
alas, our tea roses are too tender to become suffi- 
ciently large plants for effective hedges. I shall 



HEDGES FOR SMALL LAWNS. 43 

hardly venture upon a special section on roses, 
because the constant development of new varieties 
makes it desirable that the rose grower shall seek 
the information of experts. However, we may be 
sure that the Soupert roses are among the best at 
present for hedge growth, and that the Ramblers 
cannot be excelled during their period of blossoming. 
The new Rugosa roses are exceedingly attractive 
because of their luxuriant, glossy green foliage. 
Several of our perpetuals are very nearly ever- 
blooming. In using them for a hedge let every fifth 
plant be one of the climbing ever-bloomers, and be 
trained sideways on wires over the tops of the 
other bushes. 

Meehan tells us that he has seen the tea plant 
grown as a garden hedge in the Southern states. 
The nearest approach at the North is a border of 
sage, which really is veiy pretty in bloom and can 
be neatly clipped. Too much emphasis cannot be 
easily placed on the multiplication of sweet odors 
about our homes. They are associated with ozone, 
and therefore with health. I recommend the use of 
the wild grapes, but these are more directly asso- 
ciated with windbreaks, and will be spoken of farther 
on. From the flower bed edges to the walls of 
tropeolums and sweet peas, flower hedges are pretty 
enough to add to our pleasure, and they are so inex- 
pensive as to be everybody's luxury. 

The tropeolum or nasturtium is the poor man's 
flower. It belonged to our fathers and mothers as 
a pickle producer and border plant ; and to this day 
it remains par excellence the sweetest, healthiest and 
most floriferous annual in our whole list. It likes 



44 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

poor soil, with a plenty of water, and makes a trellis 
that never gets tired of blooming. It is a peculiarly 
wholesome flower, fit for the sick room as well as 
the dining room. When you want an annual screen 
or hedge of flowers, there is not one of them all to 
surpass it. The sweet pea is its only rival, but the 
sweet pea exhausts itself in half the season, and it 
requires extra good soil and constant attention to 
keep a fine screen. The tropeolum runs irregularly, 
freely, and with a sort of flowery abandon. 

Morning-glories are perhaps our next be:>t 
screen maker, and for a porch or tall screen, our best. 
The}^ blossom profusely all summer, provided only 
that you will keep the seed picked off. Better still 
it is to sow a second drill of seed outside the other 
later in the spring. I am accustomed to let morning 
glories sow themselves along a board and wire fence. 
They grow all over it and cover it with a luxuriant 
glory in August, September and October. You can 
use either of these flowers to climb up any wall or 
fence that needs decorating. 

SECTION II TREATMENT. 

Ornamental hedges depend for their beauty on 
more or less neglect. That is, if made of bushes, 
they must be allowed to follow natural outlines with 
considerable irregularity. The Tartarian honey- 
suckle is, however, specially excellent for keeping a 
good form and enduring pruning. You may lop off 
branches that overreach or you may cut a whole side 
back without materially damaging the hedge. 
Indeed, I cannot say too much for this admirable 



HEDGES FOR SMALL LAWNS. 45 

shrub. It is very close-growing, and makes new 
shoots so quickly that a clipping does not long 
remain unpleasantly formal. In general that which 
we wish of an ordinary hedge we do not wish of a 
hedge planted only for ornament ; that is, we do not 
require exact lines and precision of growth. But 
where approximate accuracy and formality are 
needed, the Tartarian honeysuckle is, above all 
others, the plant that you need. 

Hedge growers, while learning to abhor the 
monstrous and misplaced, may make hedge-growing 
contribute to the general beauty of the place by such 
contrivances as living arbors, bowered seats, and 
arched walks. One of my living arbors, slightly 
separated however, from the hedge rows, lifts its 
peaks about twenty-five feet high, and inside is a cool 
shaded enclosure of eighteen feet diameter. Origi- 
nally intended to be a place to conceal a refuse pile, 
I have found it more useful to use the enclosure as 
a retreat. With seats and a hammock it becomes 
delightful. The roots of the arbor-vitse create a dry 
mat inside like the floor of evergreen woods. If left 
to arch over a pathway, your hedges may easily give 
a cool, arbor-like pathway. One of my own leads 
to an enclosure, where is found a well, useful for 
watering the grounds. Over the well is trained an 
arbor of grapes. Hedges for screens are of great 
importance. This is not to cover the disagreeable, 
but to secure quiet nooks, places for hotbeds, and 
enclosures for wells and reservoirs. These, as a 
rule, are not what we can blend pleasantly into gen- 
eral lawn work However, our wells may be S(^ con- 
structed with rock work as to be highly ornamental. 



46 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

A screen can be advantageously used to cover 
the work that creates htter, work that must at 
all seasons be going on. However, be careful about 
carrying this system to excess. A lot of petty 
screens or bits of hedges do not create the beautiful ; 
they suggest children's playgrounds. I have in 
mind an elaborate set of lawns which err in this 
direction, so as to create a sensation of pettiness. 

The removal of hedges and hedge fences from 
the highways is a reform that follows close after the 
removal of board fences. The removal of cattle 
from the streets leaves no object whatever for the 
street fence, alive or dead, except that of seclusive- 
ness. This is conjoined in public sentiment with 
exclusiveness, and rightfully it is resented. But for 
other reasons these obstructions should never be 
placed along the street. They make the highway 
something foreign to the owners of adjacent land. 
Less interest is taken in road improvement than if 
ownership were felt, and assumed, to the center of 
the street, or at least to the driveway. I advise all 
landscapists and owners of pleasant residences to 
sweep away these things entirely, and let each person 
feel that he owns and is responsible for the cleanli- 
ness and beauty of the highway. The roadway is 
rightfully a part of those holnesteads through which 
it runs. It is only in a narrow sense a public afifair, 
to be temporarily used by the passer-by; while it is 
eminently private. The whole highway should be 
a continuous garden. If hedges appear adjoining it. 
or as a part of it, they should not be on a straigh.t 
fence line. It is much better to plant our lawns clear 
to the ditches. That is, let your shrubbery which 



HEDGES FOR SMALL LAWNS. 47 

has heretofore extended to the fence Hne, occupy also 
the street Hne to the ditchi Then the driveway, 
which alone has public ownership, will pass througli 
continuous shrubbery. 

In some instances I find fruit trees along the 
highway. This is peculiarly the opposite of the use 
of hedges, for instead of fencing people out it invites 
them to participate with us. It is hospitable; but T 
have not observed that such trees are largely meddled 
with by pedestrians. I find the grouping of ever- 
greens down to the roadway is very agreeable. In 
New Jersey towns and a few New York towns I 
have seen the choicer shrubs in full bloom within 
reach of the hands of passers-by. The lilac reaches 
to you its perfume and the cherry tree its fruit in the 
suburbs and main streets of Ithaca. This is delight- 
ful ; and why not ? It is vastly more human than 
cultivating your fine things behind stone walls or 
board fences or hedges. Flower beds in the street 
are better than cows and swine. I think it will be 
the idea of the twentieth century. We shall prob- 
ably see by the end of twent3^-five more years all of 
our ugly, weed-bedraggled highways turned into a 
public garden, reaching everywhere ; and binding all 
homes together with bands of beauty and of 
good will. 

I have not undertaken to suggest all the appro- 
priate uses of shrubs and other hedge plants about 
our homes. It is enough to say that no one should 
undertake the establishment of a beautiful home 
until he has first made a thorough and personal study 
of his land, and so become identified with it that he 
will comprehend its best use and its possibilities for 



48 HEDGES^ WINDBRliAKS, SHELTERS^ ETC. 

developing the beautiful. It is not enough that one 
shall employ a landscape artist, to get the highest 
good from this home-creating. A home should be 
the growth of a man's soul into house and land. If 
}^ou follow out this idea you will soon discover where 
a strictly ornamental hedge will assist you in making 
your home more home-like, and where a hedge, 
partly for utility, will best accomplish the ends which 
you seek. 

If a hedge has gone wild for a few years, the 
question arises, what can be done wath it. If the 
hedge be deciduous the problem is not so generally 
one that cannot be answered. Cut it down nearly 
or quite to the ground, as your first step toward 
improvement. Then inaugurate a system of careful 
trimming, not too severe ; but let the rapid growth 
have considerable free play. Give the plants one 
or two feet of new development the first year. Or 
if the hedge has been neglected for only a year or 
two, you may cut it down to two or three feet in 
hight, careful!}^ shaping the hedge as you cut it. 
Deciduous hedges have always this advantage that 
they can be built up again after neglect, whereas yon 
cannot do anything of the sort with evergreen 
hedges. I shall refer to this topic again in connec- 
tion with evergreens, but may as well say here that 
if an old evergreen hedge has gaps that you wash to 
fill up, this may be accomplished with no difficulty 
if you will have patience; whereas, if the hedge is 
badly killed in places and thoroughly out of shape, 
cutting back will do no good; it must be destroyed. 



CHAPTER IV. 

EVERGREENS FOR HEDGES. 

Notwitstanding the enthusiasm we may genu- 
inely feel for deciduous hedges, and the dehght we 
get from the shelters of sweet flowering shrubs, the 
longer a man cultivates gardens and garden homes, 
the more he will fmd himself convinced that no 
deciduous bush or tree of any sort makes as good 
a hedge for ornamental grounds, or so good a pro- 
tection against winds, as an evergreen. The latter 
creates a wall unchanged by the season. When the 
day is bitter outside, the moment I step into my 
drives between my arbor-vitae hedges the climate 
becomes comfortable. Here, behind and between 
these walls, I can grow shrubs and fruits that cann(.>t 
be grown across the street, where the wind and 
weatlier have their way. Even in November or in 
March I can find a cozy corner in a curve of arbor- 
vitce. My Concords and even my Isabellas are 
given a chance to ripen. Under the lee of protect- 
ing hedges, December not seldom gives me a dande- 
lion. Better yet, the birds know all about it ; robms 
linger in the lap of winter and do not find it so bad 
to tarry with us. But best of all is it to be able to 
look out the dreariest and bleakest days of mid- 
winter and rest my eyes on greenery as fresh as 
May or October. My own evergreen hedges and 

4 49 










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EVERGREENS FOR HEDGES. 5^ 

windbreaks, if extended in a continuous line, would 
cover over half a mile; nor do I wish to part with a 
single rod of them. 

SECTION I MATERIAL. 

The handsomest of all evergreen hedges is made 
of our native hemlock spruce. The foliage is fine 
and hangs with peculiar grace. Another advantage 
is that the color does not change during the winter 
months. Arbor-vitse becomes a russet brown, very 
beautiful, but hemlock is as green in January as in 
June. A hemlock hedge is, however, more easily 
spoiled by wrong trimming or neglect, and I cannot 
therefore recommend it for general planting, as fullv 
equal to the arbor-vitse. By all means, try it for 
small enclosures, especially near the house, or to pro- 
tect roses and delicate shrubbery. The Norway 
spruce makes an admirable hedge, but needs severe 
pruning, and is almost certain to get out of control 
or become unsightly after a few years. Nearly all 
that I have seen planted I have also seen dug out. 
The junipers can be more safely used, especially 
red cedar. Its special value is, however, to create 
shelter. It will readily make a wall from twenty to 
thirty feet high, and as such its value will be appre- 
ciated in keen wild weather. It is thoroughly hardy 
and the growth is quite rapid. The low-growing 
junipers make pleasant but irregular hedges, while 
the savin is important mainly to grow along the 
foot of high windbreaks, or to be associated with a 
rockery. 

Very similar in growth to the savin is our 
native evergreen bush, the mahonia. This is the 



52 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

handsomest shrub in existence when well grown, 
with its glossy holly-like leaves that are red when 
young, and its flowers that appear in May as huge 
balls of gold. A line of these makes a magnificent 
sight early in spring. The mahonia is, however, 
slightly tender in northern latitudes. I find it essen- 
tial to cover my bushes with a sprinkle of leaves, held 
on with branches of evergreen or with brush. In the 
northeast angle of a building, where the winter sun 
cannot reach it freely, it shows no winter-killing. 

I have referred to tlie common hemlock (Abies 
Canadensis), but there are many other varieties of 
hemlock which may be used to vary landscape work. 
For low hedges and borders. Parsons' Dwarf is 
excellent. It must also be borne in mind that the 
hemlock, unlike most evergreens, is very much given 
to sporting. You will fixud so great variation in the 
growth, even in the same opening, as to almost con- 
stitute varieties. I have been able to select those 
which were very drooping in their foliage, and others 
nearly as stiff and formal in growth as the arbor- 
vitse. It must always be borne in mind that the 
hemlock loves moist soil, and that it does not take 
with any liking to pine lands or any other soils that 
are light and sandy. Yet it will thrive on high 
knolls, provided it be well mulched. I have seldom 
lost a bush by removing it from a swampy ground, 
unless from neglect of immediate mulching. 

I have ranked as next to hemlock, and in some 
respects superior to it, the arbor-vitse. I think that, 
as generally treated, it is preferable for long hedges. 
It is stififer and stouter in growth, and will bet- 
ter endure a degree of neglect. I do not mean. 



54 HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

however, to imply that any hedge of any sort will be 
worth having after a protracted season of shifting 
for itself. The arbor-vit?e grows dense and stout 
lower branches, and I have left a fine hedge (during 
a season of illness) untrinimed for one full year. 

Bear in mind that the arbor-vitse is capable of 
adjusting itself to a wide range of climate, and for 
growth, hardiness and readiness to take the shears, 
is also useful. I think it is found over as wide a 
range of our Northern states as any evergreen that 
we have. While fond of Avet lands, it adapts itself 
quite as well to dry soils, and I have it successfully 
growing on knolls, ridges, and along the faces of 
cliffs. The hemlock, after the spring trimming, 
sends out a drooping growth which at the tip is 
almost equal to florescence. It is best suited for low 
hedges, and the arbor-vitae for taller ones. 

Select as a rule the evergreen that is native to 
your section. You will best understand its growth, 
and can secure the soil it desires. Do not think that 
because the tree is native it is less desirable in culti- 
vated grounds. The finest ornamental lawns in 
America, including their hedges, have a preponder- 
ance of shrubs and trees selected from adjacent wild 
land. You will find a veritable revelation when 
once you have set yourself to a study of your vege- 
table neighbors. You will also find that you can 
have for the digging some of nature's finest treasures. 

I have not attempted anything like a full list of 
evergreens suitable for hedges and similar work. 
Indeed, very few are unsuited to this purpose. 
Among the best are the following, with golden 
foliage : 



EVERGREENS FOR HEDGES. 5^ 

(i) The Golden arbor-vitse. This is a beau- 
tiful variety of Chinese origin, with a bright 
yellowish-green foliage. I have not found it entirely 
hardy in central New York, but nearly so. Its 
growth is compact and round. 

(2) Two other small-growing varieties of 
arbor-vitae with golden foliage are the Hovey and 
the George Peabody. These are capital little trees 
for low-growing and compact screens or hedges. 

(3) Among the Retinosporas are two exceed- 
ingly beautiful bushes or small trees, with rich 
golden color and foliage of a plume sort. These are 
very graceful, the R. plumosa aurca and the gracilis 
anrca. I do not know anything more pretty or 
graceful. 

(4) Among upright growing evergreens we 
have a number that are exceedingly well adapted to 
hedges and hedge-like growth. The pyramidaiis 
arbor-vitse resembles the Irish juniper when seen at 
a distance, but is useful where that is not and is more 
hardy. The foliage is a rich, deep green ; a color 
which it retains all winter. This tree is not made 
near as much use of as it should be. Indeed, our fine 
lawns rarely have a proportionate number of pyra- 
midal or erect-growing trees. 

(5) The Swedish juniper, the Irish juniper and 
the Neoboriensis constitute three exceedingly fine 
erect-growing evergreens suitable for hedges. The 
Irish is perhaps the finest in growth, making a splen- 
did column ten to fifteen feet high. Of the red cedar 
I have already spoken. 

(6) Of dwarf-growing plants nothing could be 
finer than the Tom Tnumb arbor-vitse. Much like 



56 HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS^ ETC. 

it is the heath-leaved arbor-vit^e, and the pumila. All 
of these are natural dwarfs. They will make a hedge 
from one to three feet high. 

(7) The Retinospora squarrosa is another very 
graceful and very beautiful small-growing evergreen, 
with glaucous green foliage. 

(8) At the South ma}^ be planted to great 
advantage the Irish yew, the English yew. and other 
varieties of the evergreen. The Variegata is edged 
with golden yellow. These cannot be recommended 
for the North as perfectly hardy. The yew is popu- 
lar in England because it can be so easily sheared. 
It grows with very dense foliage. 

(9) Among the large strong-growing ever- 
greens the Austrian pine and the Scotch pine make 
two of our very best for screens, but not the best for 
close hedges. 

(10) But whatever else we overlook we must 
not forget the Siberian arbor-vitse. This variety is 
very much like the American, except that its foliage 
is heavier and grows cultriform, that is, perpendic- 
ular instead of horizontal. It bears trimming per- 
fectly and can be kept in as good shape as our native 
arbor-vit?e. 

(11) The Balsam fir I mention not to recom- 
mend it, but simply to warn all hedge growers from 
undertaking the use of it. It is the most disappoint- 
ing of all our evergreens for every purpose what- 
ever. Exceedingly beautiful when young, it begins 
to die out at the base very early, and as it becomes 
a tree it becomes scraggy and unsightly. It also 
has the exceedingly bad fault of breaking down 
easily in high winds. 



EVERGREENS FOR HEDGES. 57 

Our Southern states have a few other evergreens 
adapted to hedges, such as Ilex cassinc, a species of 
holly. The leaves are described as small and much 
like that of the arbutus. The berries are large and 
brilliant red — not liked by birds, and therefore per- 
sistent throughout the winter. The rhododendrons 
are peculiarly beautiful for hedges, where they are 
hardy, as are also the low-growing laurels or 
kalmias. However, they will not thrive in lime- 
stone soils sufficiently well to be of any use for hedge 
work. By using made soil, and by persistent atten- 
tion, individual shrubs may be grown, and short 
hedges. If you try them at all, get good garden soil 
without the least admixture of manure, add sand and 
wood mold, and take care to mulch in the winter. 

The Box deserves special notice. The low- 
growing bushy variety is admirable in garden work, 
bordering beds and walks. The larger growing 
makes an admirable low hedge. It endures cutting 
as well as the holly, and is responsible for no end of 
fancies and abnormal shapings called art. In Eng- 
lish and French gardens during the last century, 
houses of box were not uncommon. Topiary work 
is, how^ever, no longer as fashionable in English 
gardens or even in French. In this country it has 
never secured any serious attention from our better 
home-builders. As our own lives grow natural and 
democratic, the conventional in art becomes dis- 
tasteful. 

It is no small advantage to have near our homes 
such plants as can be cut for winter house decoration. 
The savin is admirable for this purpose. The 
mahonia is perhaps best of all ; for although the 



58 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

leaves may be beneath the snow, they have lost none 
of their rich summer brightness. Below the line of 
New York, Magnolia glauca serves a similar pur- 
pose, while farther south it becomes so entirely hardy 
that it may be used for windbreaks with remarkable 
effect. Tlie leaves are large and glaucous, occa- 
sionally acting as deciduous. The flowers are 
exceedingly sweet as well as beautiful. Other mag- 
nolias are very valuable for hedges, especially con- 
spicua and Soulangcana. Indeed, a.11 of the Chinese 
varieties may be made useful for hedge work. Few 
of them are evergreen, but I name them here as asso- 
ciated with the glauca. The holly is a favorite in 
Europe as well as in our Southern states. It will 
thrive perfectly as far north as New Jersey and New 
York city. Its historical and poetical associations 
place it quite as high as its real beauty. It bears 
winter clipping as well as the mahonia. For this 
reason it has had its grotesque and fantastic shear- 
ing. Fortunately no one any longer cares for mon- 
strosities in landscape, and we shall probably never 
again have a reign of vegetable griffins, roosters and 
dogs. There are holly hedges in existence known 
to be over two hundred years old. This is one of 
the hedge plants that thrives best in sandy soil. It 
grows very slowly, but will at the last, if untrimmed, 
reach a hight of twenty-five feet. 

SECTION IT TREATMENT. 

(a) The time for planting evergreens is iden- 
tical with the time for planting deciduous trees. 
The old notion that it was advisable to plant them 



EVERGREENS FOR HEDGES. 59 

in August is entirely given up. It resulted in a loss 
of a large proportion of all that were planted. Why 
the hobby ever found so general acceptance is diffi- 
cult of explanation. Set your plants early in April, 
and plant them precisely as you do deciduous trees 
— only with extra precautions. When I say April 
I mean for the sections of country running from 
Boston westward. 

(b) Before digging your trees, have your 
trenches dug for planting them. These should be 
of ample width, probably three feet will never be too 
wide for the trench, and two feet in depth. Let the 
bottom be filled with loose earth and then puddled, 
that is, thoroughly soaked with water. When set- 
ting, wet down the roots constantly, and thoroughly 
puddle each tree as it is planted. This is the impor- 
tant point with evergreens, that they be thoroughlv 
puddled. It is, however, equally important that the 
plants be handled right in digging. The roots of 
an evergreen should never be exposed to the sun, or 
the wind, or allowed to get dry. Wrap the roots as 
soon as out of the ground with wet straw or matting 
or old cloth. Keep these well wetted until you reach 
your planting ground. Then, if not to be imme- 
diately put into the soil, puddle the roots by thrust- 
ing them into a tank or pond or brook. Keep them 
here until you are ready to plant them, drawing them 
out one by one. It is necessary" to add that if the 
soil be exceedingly solid and retentive, drainage 
should be prepared beforehand. This may be accom- 
plished by tile drains or a series of tile drains. If 
the hedge be a straight one, I should be inclined to 
run a drain parallel, and within a few feet through 



6o HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

the whole length. If the trench dug for setting 
your plants be a little deeper than needed for the 
plants, and the bottom filled with rubble stone, this 
will suffice, unless the soil is low. 

(c) As soon as planted and thoroughly soaked 
to the surface, let your hedge be mulched. This 
must never be overlooked or delayed. Use sawdust 
if convenient, or coal ashes, if more convenient, — 
always those of anthracite coal. Bear in mind that 
manure from the barnyard, and the commercial fer- 
tilizers, have nothing to do with the soil in which 
you place evergreens. If you wish to destroy your 
hedge impromptu, use barnyard manure. 

(d) If the hedge plants were not cut back 
before setting, let it be done at once, and let it be 
done very severely. Bring all the plants into as 
nearly the same size as possible. The only rule to 
be given is to remove from one-third to two-thirds 
of the wood, including all the long straggling and 
irregular branches. The permanent shaping of the 
hedge will require a watchful eye and careful hand 
for not less than four or five years. Meanwhile the 
hedge will have a somewhat open look, not altogether 
beautiful, but closing up steadily into a solid wall. 

This shaping is the key to all your success or 
failure. You cannot compel evergreens to continue 
healthy if you insist on artificial forms of growth. 
Whatever kind you are planting, study first its 
natural method of growth and outlines as the trees 
stand wild. Then follow very nearly these same 
outlines as you train the bushes into a hedge. The 
arbor-vitae should rise, on an easy slope from the 
ground, to near what you intend shall be the top of 



EVERGREENS FOR HEDGES. 6 1 

the hedge; after reaching that point there should be 
an easy roll over the top to the other side. This top 
should never be sharp cut nor flat, nor should it be 
very broad from the sides. For some reason that I 
am unable to explain, the hemlock does not, when 
rounded from near the bottom, refuse to grow as 
well as when it takes the somewhat conical form of 
the wild tree. This roll of the hedge is not exactly 
what we might term the natural form of the hemlock 
tree, nevertheless, I have found it desirable, and 
entirely practicable to grow my hemlock hedges 
much more rolling from the bottom on the one side 
to the bottom on the other than my arbor-vitee 
hedges. I have never had a gap in either of these 
hedges due 'to winter-killing, or in any way traceable 
to the trimming. You will find it possible, probably, 
on this style of trimming to get a fairly compact 
hedge by the end of the fourth year. The hemlock 
should improve in form and compactness for ten 
years longer. With careful handling it should 
retain its completeness and beauty for forty or fifty 

years more. 

If trees grow near by, or shrubbery crowds 
against an evergreen hedge, there will surely be dead 
branches rapidly formed on the side encroached upon. 
Sometimes this may be endurable, where it occurs 
on the back side of the hedge, and you do not care 
to sacrifice a very choice shrub. Where I have found 
it necessary or desirable to fill up such gaps in arbor- 
vit« hedges, I have found it much more practicable 
to fill with hemlock than with arbor-vitse. Take 
small plants of not more than one foot in hight, set 
them carefully, and be patient. This fusion of two 



62 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

Species of evergreens is not always undesirable. The 
arbor-vitse and hemlock work specially well together. 
It must be borne in mind that evergreen will not 
grow with equal thrift in sun and in shade, or when 
half shaded. These inequalities can be partially 
remedied by careful trimming. I have been able to 
run my arbor-vit?e hedges for over a quarter of a 
mile over the ground, and so adjust them to the grade 
that they do not give to the eye an unpleasant lack 
of either symmetry or uniformity. I know that they 
are not of equal bight or equal fullness, but I know 
that my shears have made them appear to be such. 

Evergreen hedges are ruined more often by 
errors in trimming than by all other causes com- 
bined. The following rules, if followed carefully, 
will be sure to keep any well-grown hedge in good 
condition for thirty or forty years, probably longer : 
( I ) Trim only once a year, and always before nevv 
growth appears, in the latter part of April or early 
in May. That is, if the spring be warm, cut in 
March, if not, in April. Never cut in midwinter, 
for the tips that you cut away are intended by nature 
as a protection for the buds which will make next 
summer's growth. If cut away, the probabilities are 
that cold days and severe frosts will either kill back 
the hedge in spots, or nip the buds enough to spoil 
the beauty of the coming growth. Remember that 
a hemlock hedge is beautiful not simply for its shape, 
but for the exquisite blossoming of its fresh growth. 
Nor should you ever cut in autumn, and that for the 
same reason, that you would be cutting away the 
cloak that nature has ]:)repared for the hedge during 
the coming winter. If you do cut in autumn you will 



EVERGREENS FOR HEDGES. 63 

almost certainly be inquiring of some one, in the 
spring, why some of your hedges are killed altogether 
and others show dead bushes. A gentleman of my 
acquaintance who owned very fine hemlock hedges 
insisted on keeping them clipped throughout the 
season. The result is that he now has so wretched 
a hedge and so unsightly that what he has not already 
dug out will soon be removed. I bear strong empha- 
sis on this point, because so many people who seek 
to have beautiful homes have a passion for eternally 
clipping something. Their hedges must be sheared ; 
the lawn must be equally sheared. To them growth 
is never beautiful — only smoothness. 

(2) When you trim, cut close to the wood of 
the previous year, but never so close that you do not 
leave a small portion of wood with leaves on it, for 
here are the only buds for new growth. Evergreens, 
unlike deciduous trees, have no dormant buds on old 
wood that can be developed. If you cut away the 
leaves, or needles as we should call them, entirely, 
then you have killed the hedge, or whatever part of 
the hedge you have so cut. This mischief also 
occurs from the employment of professional trim- 
mers — that is, of a class of men who do not under- 
stand anything beyond the formalities of cutting. 
They seldom comprehend the nature of the growth, 
and are intent only on keeping the outlines of the 
wood. You must bear in mind that they will charge 
the damage to the severity of the winter, or to the 
heat of the sum.mer, or to some other cause which 
will not stand investigation ; they will not be them- 
selves responsible. The evergreens I have indicated 
as hardy do not winter-kill, nor do they burn out in 



EVERGREENS FOR HEDGES. ^5 

summer if properly trimmed. (3) Have as little of 
last year's growth as possible left by the shears, 
because if a hedge gains only one inch on each side 
each year, it will in twenty years have gamed forty 
inches or considerably over three feet. In many 
places this spread of the hedge will not be endurable. 
It will encroach too much on your drive or on your 
lawn. (4) There is great danger that your trrni- 
mer using long shears, will bear his weight a little 
more heavily as he reaches higher up, and so will 
valley in a hedge. Insist on it that the contour I 
have previously described be kept without infringe- 
ment.' If not, your hedge will begin to decay. 
(5) Do not allow the lower branches to be short- 
ened in with those that lie just above. They must 
reach out so as to form, from the very ground, a 
slight inclination all the way up, and leave a solid 
base for the hedge. If possible these lower branches 
should lie flat on the ground. (6) If your hedge 
runs east and west, or nearly so, the north side will 
be in danger from close pruning. It must have 

light and air. 

A few things must be borne in mmd m the 
care of evergreen hedges apart from the pruning: 
( I ) That thev must not be touched roughly when 
hard frozen. The branches are then as brittle as glass 
and will break sharp ofif, leaving rents and breaches. 
It is clear, therefore, that careless drivers must not 
be tolerated among vour drives that are bordered 
with this class of hedges. If the hedge is loaded 
with snow that needs to be removed, let it be done 
if possible when the branches are not frozen. (2) 
Urine kills a hedge, and dogs become a nuisance. 

5 



66 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

If you keep a dog at all, a collie is the safest, and a 
spayed female the hest of all. I hardly need add 
that you must keep sharp watch lest ahout the roots 
of your hedge be poured brine or any other salty 
material. (3) You must not leave the heavy snows 
of winter to do as they will with your hedges. If a 
heavy snow falls on them, let it be loosened up and 
tossed off by the use of a rake or a pitchfork or with 
a long pole. I sometimes use a tool made of a bit of 
board firmly fastened to the end of a pole. 

It will of course be asked (i) How long- 
will it take to establish a perfect evergreen 
hedge? All depends on the common sense 
and care that it receives. An evergreen 
hedge should look very well, as I have before 
said, by the third year. It should be in splendid form 
b}^ the fifth year. (2) How long will an evergreen 
hedge last? I hav-e hedges of arbor-vitae thirty-five 
years old, which my friend. Professor Bailey, says 
are the finest between the Atlantic and the Pacific. 
My hemlock hedges of the same age are as fresh and 
as perfect as at ten years of age. 

One of the most important subjects is, where 
not to have an evergreen hedge. I do not know 
that it is possible to give any directions, excepting 
that you study your ground carefully before plant- 
ing. A hedge, a screen, or a windbreak may be so 
placed as to throw the drift of snow directly into 
your drives, or they may be so planted as to divert 
such lines of drift. This can be accomplished only, 
as I said, by a previous and careful study of your 
grounds and the tendency to drifting. Other sug- 
g'estions I prefer to make in the form of sketches. 



EVERGREENS FOR HEDGES. 67 

Note. — I do not know of anyone in America 
better qualified to speak on evergreens than Samuel 
Parsons, Jr. I think so highly of a brief essay from 
his pen on Japanese evergreens that I shall close this 
section by copying the same. While it is not strictly 
a discussion of hedges, it will give precisely that 
information which will be sought for by those who 
desire to experiment with some of the more rare and 
beautiful of these trees. ''Abies polita, the tiger-tail 
spruce, is one of the finest and most valuable of the 
Japanese conifers. It is rich and very characteristic 
in form. The yellow-barked branches extend out 
stiff and straight, and the glossy, bright green, stiff- 
pointed leaves are as sharp and not unlike the spines 
of a hedgehog. The curious appearance of the ends 
of the young growth or half bursting leaf buds 
doubtless suggested the name, tiger-tail spruce. 
Abies polita grows slowly and, therefore, belongs to 
the class of evergreens specially fitted for small 
places. But this little cluster of evergreens close by 
is even better fitted for such work. They are Jap- 
anese junipers, and very hardy. Their elegant forms 
and rich tints would indeed render them distin- 
guished anywhere. One is silvery, at least on a 
portion of its leaves ; another is almost solid gold, and 
another (Juniper us aurea variegafa) has its leaves 
simply tipped with gold in the daintiest fashion 
imaginable. 

*'Let us look at these two Japanese pines that 
show so richly, even at a little distance. One is 
Finns densiflora, with bright green leaves, long and 
very effective. This tree grows very rapidly, soon 
requiring the application of the pruning knife. In 



68 HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

coloring and general habit it is perhaps the best of 
Japanese pines, except Pinus Massoniana, which only 
surpasses it in a yellowish tint that generally per- 
vades the leaves. But the Pinus Massoniana par 
excellence is the golden-leaved form of that species. 
It is bright gold that seems to gain a touch of deeper 
gold as you pause to look at it. This peculiar effect 
is greatly enhanced by the fact that Pinus Masso- 
niana has two leaves only in a sheath, and these 
leaves are so clustered on the end of the branches as 
to spread in every direction. It was this peculiarity 
that gave rise to the name, sun-ray pine. But the 
noteworthy habit of this pine is its late variegation. 
In June, while in full growth, it is rather greenisli- 
golden than golden ; but all through the summer its 
yellow grows brighter, until in September it makes 
a very striking object amid the fading leaves of fall. 
It makes, in fact, a worthy companion for the golden 
oak (Quercns Concordia) , which you will remember 
has the same peculiarity. It should be also noted 
that the brightness of the sun-ray pine remains unin- 
jured during winter, and never burns in summer, a 
quality that other so-called golden pines have sadly 
needed. The bright yellow of the sun-ray pine is 
confined in a peculiar manner to about two-thirds of 
the leaf. Beginning at the base, first comes gold, 
then an equal amount of green and then again as 
much gold at the tip. The dividing lines between 
these colors are marked out with singular distinct- 
ness, thus giving the utmost delicacy and finish to 
the variegation. Pinus Massoniana varicgata is on 
the lawn in question, but it is. nevertheless, very rare 
and hardly to be obtained anywhere. 



EVERGREENS FOR HEDGES. 69 

"We come now to the Retinosporas (Japan 
cypresses), choicest, I was about to say, of all ever- 
greens ; certainly the choicest, as a class, of all 
recently introduced evergreens. To Robert Fortune, 
the great English collector of plants in Japan, we 
owe probably the real introduction of the leading 
species of Retinosporas — namely, R. pluniosa aurca, 
R. pisifcra and R. ohtiisa — and a greater benefit 
could hardly have been done the lawn planter than 
the introduction of these evergreens. They are 
hardy, of slow growth and of most varied beauty in 
individual specimens, the latter being a quality 
greatly wanting among some evergreens commonly 
used throughout the country, arbor-vitses for in- 
stance. And, apropos of arbor- vitses, let me say 
that the Retinosporas bear a much more close rela- 
tion to that species than they do to cypresses, not- 
withstanding the latter has been adopted as the Eng- 
lish name. The Retinosporas graft readily on the 
Thujas or arbor-vitaes and bear a certain resem- 
blance to them, but the resemblance only that 
can exist between a beautiful plant and one 
much less attractive. Let us look at a group 
of the new and rare Retinosporas, although 
unfortunately all Retinosporas are comparatively 
rare on our lawns. In asking you to look 
first at fdicoidcs, I am selecting one of the 
very choicest and most curious green species 
or varieties. If it were not for a peculiarly thick 
curled border along the leaf of this Retino- 
spora, it might be readily taken while young for an 
evergreen fern. It is a spreading plant, of slov/ 
growth and great hardiness. Indeed, I might say. 



yO HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

once for all, that the Retinosporas are of unexcelled 
hardiness, both winter and summer, and that their 
variegations are all permanent. Can a higher char- 
acter be given to any other evergreen? 

"There are two distinct kinds of weeping 
Retinosporas — namely, a beautiful fern-like pendu- 
lous form of R. ohtusa, originating in Flushing, and 
an extravagant, attenuated form, imported recently 
from Japan through Mr. Thomas Hogg. The long 
thread-like leaves of this variety fall directly down 
and curve about the stem in swaying, meager masses, 
which suggest that in this plant the extreme of the 
weeping form among evergreens has been reached. 
Almost as curious as this is another introduction of 
Mr. Thomas Hogg, R. Ulifcra aurea. We have 
known R. Mifera for some time as a rare tree with 
tesselated shaggy masses of green, thread-like foli- 
age, but Mr. Hogg's new variety offers the same 
strange mass of foliage, only in this case it is turned 
into gold, broad, solid, permanent gold. While I 
am pointing out the Golden Retinosporas, which are 
veritable sunbeams amid other evergreens, let me 
call your attention to R. obtiisa aurca, one of the best 
and most distinct of all variegated forms. It is free- 
growing, with a beautiful combination of gold color 
intermixed with glossy rich green, all over the plant. 
Although not exactly a new plant, I am constrained 
to call your passing attention to R. obtusa nana, 
one of the very best of dwarf evergreens, a 
dense flat tuft of glossy, deep green spray, a 
cushion or ball of evergreen foliage that will 
hardly grow two feet in ten years. The golden 
form of R. obtusa nana is charming. Its yel- 



EVERGREENS FOR HEDGES. 7 1 

low is a rich bronze, and I do not know any- 
thing of the kind more attractive. R. pisifera 
nana varicgata is also very beautiful, a dense minia- 
ture bush of a general bluish-gray aspect, except a 
portion of the lesser branchlets and leaves, which are 
pale yellow. But do not think I have begun to 
exhaust the curious forms of these Retinosporas. 
I have only given the most noteworthy to be found 
on a superior lawn. Any large group of R. ohtiisa 
will give a dozen beautiful diverse forms of weeping, 
pyramidal and dwarf or spreading evergreens. All 
or practically all kinds of Retinosporas now used 
came from Japan, where they are common, but highlv 
valued in the beautiful gardens of that country. Mr. 
Hogg has not only introduced several of these new 
Retinosporas, but has given us possibly more new 
Japanese plants than anv collector since the time of 
Robert Fortune's famous horticultural explorations. 
'1 must not leave these Retinosporas without 
calling attention again to their excellent adaptation 
to small places. If we restrict the planting on a 
small lawn to Japanese maples, Retinosporas and two 
or three shrubs, like Spiraea crispifolia, we may 
almost defy, with a little skill, the power of time to 
compass, by means of trees, the destruction of our 
grass plots. I must add, however, one other conifer 
to this seemingly short, but really varied, list of 
new hardy plants suited to miniature lawn planting. 
I refer to Sciadopitys vcrticillaia, the parasol pine, 
one of the most extraordinary evergreens known. 
The plant we see on this lawn is scarcelv two feet 
high, and 3^et it is more than ten years old. Trav- 
elers in Japan tell us of specimens in Japanese gar- 



72 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

dens fifty and one hundred feet high ; but certainly 
in youth the plant is wonderfully dwarf. Its strange 
habit is produced by the curiously long, broad, dark, 
green needles, or narrow-shaped leaves, that cluster 
in parasol-like tufts at the end of each succeeding 
year's growth. The color is as dark as. that of the 
yew, and the growth as compact. It is, moreover, 
very hardy, and thus presents a combination of choice 
qualities of the most strange, -attractive, and valuable 
character. The plant is so entirely original in its 
forms that it seems some lone type, the correlations 
of which are lost, or yet to be found. As we look 
upon it, we commence to realize how thoroughly 
most plants of the same genus, all over the globe, are 
related to each other, just because we can think of 
nothing else that resembles the parasol pine. 

"A Japanese yew, near by, of rich and spreading 
habit, exemplifies this resemblance between various 
members of a genus situated in various parts of tlie 
earth. This Japanese yew (Taxus cuspid a fa) is 
however, very noteworthy for great hardiness, a 
character that can be scarcely accorded to any other 
yew in this climate. TJiuiopsis Staudishii is another 
Japanese plant on this lawn, of comparatively recoit 
introduction. I want to call your attention to it, 
situated near the Retinosporas, not only because it is 
a beautiful evergreen, somewhat like the arbor-vit?e 
in general appearance, but because it does better here, 
apparently, than in England. This is a peculiarity 
remarkable in an evergreen, for the moist climate of 
England seems to make for them a very home." 

I do not need to apologize for inserting thi? 
essay in full ; because it will surely be helpful to a 



EVERGREENS FOR HEDGES. 



73 



very large class of those whom I desire to aid in 
making home delightful by the use of evergreens. 
Most of the trees which Mr. Parsons describes can be 
used in hedges, groups, and shelters. The true home 
builder is also a decorative artist. 




FIG. 8. GROUND PLAN OF VILLAGE PLOT, WITH 

FLOWERS, HEDGES AND WINDBREAKS. 




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CHAPTER V. 

WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS. ETC. 

While the hedge proper also serves largely as 
a protection against wind and storm, it is presumed 
not to be planted primarily for that purpose. The 
true windbreak is a very tall hedge, or a close row 
of evergreens, or grove, or a strip of forest. While 
I am an enthusiast on beautiful and useful hedges, I 
believe the subject of supreme importance for Ameri- 
can agriculture and horticulture is just now how to 
protect ourselves and our grounds from violent 
winds and changes of temperature. Professor Bailey, 
in his admirable discussion of the subject, suggests 
that one reason why fruit growing is attended with 
increasing difficulties is because of the removal of 
the forests The result of forest destruction has been 
to make our summers hotter and dryer and our win- 
ters more extreme. It is not so much that the 
weather is colder than formerly, but that the changes 
are more frequent and sharper. 

The forest aids the fruit grower in two ways: 
first, it prevents the severe sweep of winds breaking 
trees, and creating sudden atmospheric changes; 
second, it conserves and balances atmospheric mois- 
ture. The sweep of winds when undisturbed bears 
away the moisture from the soil and also from the 
trees and their buds. It is well known that fruit 

;5 



76 HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS^ ETC. 

buds will endure two or three degrees severer freez- 
ing when the air is moist than when it is dry. It is 
true that hedges and windbreaks and forests ma)^ 
hinder the free circulation of air over a very adjacent 
orchard, and they may harbor both insect ene- 
mies and fungous diseases. Professor Bailey 
suggests that we can and ought to do a 
great deal, in the way of eliminating from 
our forests, trees that are specially the breed- 
ers of our enemies. For instance, the wild cherry, 
which grows along the edge of our woods, is espe- 
cially occupied by the tent caterpillar, and as a rule 
should be cut down. I follow Professor Bailey still 
farther, in his suggestion that we do not wish or 
need to protect ourselves from all sorts of winds. If 
wind passes over a large body of water, it becomCvS 
warmer by taking heat from the water as well as 
moisture. In this case a windbreak would be detri- 
mental to the interests of the horticulturist. "From 
a general study of the subject it appears that, for 
interior localities, dense belts of evergreens, backed 
by forest trees to prevent evergreens from becoming 
ragged, are advisable, because winds coming off the 
land are liable to make the plantation colder. In 
localities influenced by bodies of water it is better to 
plant just enough to break the force of the wind." 
To sum up the whole subject : ''A windbreak may 
exert a great influence upon a fruit plantation. The 
benefits derived from it are, protection from cold, 
lessening of evaporation, decrease of windfalls, facili- 
tation of labor, enabling trees to grow more erect, 
encouragement of birds, and beauty of landscape." 
I am so loath to divorce the useful and the beau- 



WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. "JJ 

tiful that my taste inclines very strongly to those 
forms of windbreaks that give more or less return of 
fruit. It is amazing how large an amount of grapes 
can be grown on a close row of deciduous trees, which 
become interlaced with the vines. It is true that as 
the vines climb higher much of the fruit will be out 
of reach for easy gathering, and that very little 
of it will be really marketable, but it is never out 
of reach of the birds. In the orchard we also have 
at hand an eminently fine tree for constructing fruit- 
ful windbreaks — I refer to the Buffum pear. This 
tree grows almost as a counterpart of the Lombardy 
poplar, erect, stiff and compact. It should never be 
cut back at the top, for it has no capacity for lateral 
growth. Set the trees about eight feet apart, and 
then let them take their own way. The result will 
be a wall, as smooth and perfect as a trimmed hedge. 
In blossom, the Buffum pear is simply superb, and 
later it will be loaded with golden pears, which while 
not first class are yet a very good second class. The 
fruit is one of the best that we have for pickling, and 
if picked before ripe becomes a very good dessert 
pear. Let them begin to yellow before picking, and 
then store or sell. The cropping power is astonish- 
ing. After the pears are gone, and in the later sea- 
son, the leaves become a brilliant crimson. Of all 
lawn trees there are only two or three equal to the 
Buffum pear in autumn coloring, and I do not know 
one other pear that is equal to it. The leaves hang 
on until late, and a wall of them cannot be surpassed 
for magnificence. If instead of a windbreak you 
desire an avenue that shall be part shelter for your 
drives the Buffum pear still surpasses all trees for 



y8 HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS^ SHELTERS^ ETC. 

close growth and rich foHage. In other words, here 
is a fruit that we would not select to any extent for 
orchard-growing, and yet it is so good that it will be 
welcomed when it affords us bushels, without any 
further labor than that of planting a windbreak. 

A close row of dwarf apples is another device 
for combining fruit and shelter. Some of the dwarfs 
are delightfully compact and beautiful, whether 
singly or in rows. They are useful, however, only 
where you will be content with a windbreak ten feet 
high. The Ben Davis is a good apple for this pur- 
pose. Its branches droop, and in autumn bend 
gracefully down with a load of crimson fruit. The 
Astrakhan, not dwarfed, makes a splendid wind- 
break, bearing quite as well as in an open orchard. 
The Kirkland is extremely fine for close-growing, 
for dense foliage and for heavy cropping. The main 
point to be looked after, in planting apple tree shel- 
ters, is to select varieties with tough enduring wood. 
Other varieties, like the Baldwin and the Pound 
Sweet, will soon give way under the loads of fruit, 
or in windstorms ; and present in the course of two 
or three years after bearing, a mass of brushwood. 
Such a windbreak must be trimmed of suckers as 
carefully as the trees in an orchard. 

I have seen nature create some remarkably good 
windbreaks with wild cherries and wild plums. The 
latter particularly are good for their fruit as well as 
their shelter. It is well for us to give nature the cue, 
by starting along a required line a choice variety of 
plums like the Lombard, from which suckers will 
soon fill up all the space allowed. But here again 
there will be constant need of the saw and pruning 



WINDBREAKS^ SHELTERS^ ETC. 79 

knife, because as new trees appear, some of the old 
ones are sure of continually dying. I have already 
suggested the danger from wild cherry trees, that 
they will become breeders of tent and other cater- 
pillars, yet they are very beautiful in close rows. 

A protective wall of crab apple trees is one of the 
easiest to be made and one of the most useful. These 
trees, however, should not be set closer than fifteen 
feet. Let them branch out six or ei^ht feet in each 
direction, and let the branches start about five or six 
feet from the ground. After the first crop of apples 
these branches will droop to the sod. Remember 
that such a row of trees must have room. It must 
not be used as a close hedge, for then its beauty as 
well as its utility will be sacrificed. If you know of 
anything more beautiful tlian a Martha or Hyslop 
crab in full bloom, it must be the same tree in full 
fruit. A row of these trees standing twenty feet 
high, and touching the ground with their branches, 
will delight the dullest eye. The value of the fruit 
is at the same time considerable for home use, or 
market. The demand for the best varieties of 
crab apples is on the increase. Prices range about 
with the prices of dessert apples in the autumn 
months. 

No one can fail to get excellent hints from the 
way nature creates her windbreaks wherever she is 
permitted an opportunity. Watch how rapidly along 
every line of old fence these appear. The farmer 
can do no better than to let them grow. Oaks, ashes, 
elms, chestnuts, will thus stand close, or in groups, 
while underneath crowd elders, haws and hazels. 
Wild grapevines climb through and interlace the 



8o HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS^ SHELTERS^ ETC. 

whole, with here and there a few loops of Virginia 
creeper. I defy you to find anything more beautiful. 
But it is the value of these palisades against the storm 
and the wind that we should most think of. I know 
farmers who have shown their first title to owner- 
ship by cutting down all such encumbrances. They 
look upon them as occupants of good soil which 
should be put to better purposes. In one case, where 
I have had excellent opportunity for observation, the 
owner has so changed the climate that where quince 
orchards grew to perfection, nothing of the kind will 
at present thrive. It is well sometimes to join hands 
with nature and board up or otherwise protect such a 
line of trees. Behind such a protection half-hardy 
crops and trees will be sufficiently helped to become 
toughened to the climate. Many of our shrubs and 
trees only need guarding carefully for the first four 
or five years of their growth, after which they 
become acclimated and hardy. 

In a few cases I have found it advisable to use 
movable winter fences instead of planting shrubs or 
trees, removing them wlien spring returns. These 
are especially useful to the north and west of vine- 
yards and quince orchards. I have also found them 
useful in making a currant crop certain and in break- 
ing from my gooseberry rows the full force of the 
wind, but in the latter case the protection is of more 
importance in breaking the force of the hot winds 
in summer. Such fences are not desirable to shield 
peach trees and plums, which are more likely to be 
induced to make late grovv'th or soften their blossom 
buds in the warm winter sun. Some of the pear 
trees, notably the Seckel and Sheldon, are easily 



; WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 8l 

Started by warm exposure in midwinter, and the 
buds afterward killed by a sharp freeze. 

However, I believe that in most cases where the 
climate is severe, or where the winds have a broad 
sweep, our best resort is to evergreen trees. In this 
section 1 do not know of any tree that is better than 
the arbor-vitae, either the American or the Siberian 
variety. Next to this I should select the Norway 
spruce. This magnificent tree has shown its capacity 
for adapting itself to a f,reat range of soils, and is 
everywhere absolutely hardy. In planting the Nor- 
way spruce 1 should by all means prefer a row of 
trees standing so far apart that each one might be 
individually well developed. This would require a 
distance of at least twenty feet. If it be desirable 
to form a windbreak very speedily, plant interme- 
diate trees, which shall be carefully removed as soon 
as the trees begin to impinge. Where space and 
room are of no special importance, additional beauty 
can be secured by planting at determinate points 
groups of these trees, that is, at every ten or twenty 
rods let the line be broken by a group of three to five 
trees. These should stand closer together, so that 
when they are twenty or thirty feet high they will 
make but one compact outline. If desired these may 
be made very pleasant shelters for seats in summer. 
The arbor-vitcx I should plant as a rule more 
after the manner of a liedge, letting the plants at 
the outset stand four or five feet apart. The erect 
arbor-vitse is exceedingly fine iov the purpose we are 
considering, but it should stand even closer in the 
row than the common arbor-vitcT. The beautiful 
hemlock is not so i)erfect for a windbreak as it is for 
6 




o 

l-H 



WINDBREAKS^ SHELTERS, ETC. 83 

a hedge, because of its propensity to lose the lower 
branches. Still its dense foliage and noble green color 
make it rank high for shelter. In New England 
and some parts of the Northwest, what can be finer 
than the white pine, wdiile in the Southern states the 
yellow pine is used by nature for a shelter and may 
well be used by man. One of the grandest of the 
pines to create a solid wall is Pinns Ccinbra. This 
tree does not rise with me above eighteen or twenty 
feet, and it makes a diameter of about ten feet, while 
each tree is compact and sits firmly on the sod. It 
is a grand tree for all purposes. 

I quote from a very judicious article issued by 
the Iowa Horticultural Society. For wind-swept 
prairies ''white spruce, silver spruce and Black Hills 
spruce are all good for single row evergreen shelters. 
Norway and arbor-vitae are good on dark, retentive 
black loams, but not generally on light, thin prairie 
soils or exposed hilly locations. Farm shelter belts 
should differ. They should be located around build- 
ing sites and yards, and the inside rows should be 
one hundred and fifty feet back to keep snowdrifts 
out of the yard. If land is not plenty, use only ever- 
greens, but if plenty the quickest growing deciduous 
Cottonwood and willow can be used. For the out- 
side rows, next to the wind, plant two rows of Cot- 
tonwood cuttings, then come in sixteen feet toward 
the buildings and plant two rows of willow^ cuttings 
parallel with the cottonwood. So in alternate plant- 
ing set four pairs of rows each. Thickly-set wil- 
low will keep wind out below, but cottonwood throws 
it up. Now, inside toward the buildings, thirty-two 
feet from the last row of willows, plant Scotch pine ; 



84 HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

thirty-two feet further in a row of white pine ; and 
thirty-two feet in further a row of white spruce, 
Black Hill spruce, or silver spruce. Set evergreens 
twelve feet apart in rows alternate ; willows and Cot- 
tonwood four feet apart in rows. All trees should 
be planted on ground in high tilth. It should be 
given all summer annual cultivation, and mulch each 
fall for over winter. Continue cultivation until you 
cannot get through, then seed to clover, where it will 
grow. Evergreens ten to fifteen inches high, that 
have been transplanted, are best to use. A grove of 
all Northern red cedar makes the best grove for high 
dry prairie soil. Do not let evergreen trees lay 
around exposed to dry air or winds when planted. 
Do not water them, but cultivate and hoe them the 
same as the best garden crop." I agree with most 
of this so thoroughly that I give it in full. I do not, 
however, assent to the position that it is best to plant 
small evergreens ten to fifteen inches high. It is 
more than can be asked of most farmers to wait for 
the development of such trees to become good wind- 
breaks. I should set, by all means, trees four or five 
feet high, provided they can be obtained. As for 
watering trees, I have already suggested that they 
should be thoroughly watered, but it is understood 
by good cultivators that hoeing a plant is equivalent 
to watering it. At all events do not let an evergreen 
even approach dryness of the roots. 

Among deciduous trees and shrubs the willow 
is quite as good in the East as in the West. The 
Cottonwood is not procurable or usable in most of 
the Eastern states. Both of these trees prefer moist 
soil. I have seen some admirable windbreaks mad? 



WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 85 

by thrusting long sticks of willows into the soil, about 
eidit feet apart. These develop into trees with 
o-reat rapidity. It is very desirable in some sections 
to multiply our nut trees by allowing them to grow 
along the fences. The butternut in this section 
makes a very good protection against the wind but 
the trees should not stand nearer than twenty feet. 
x\mong smaller trees, I recommend as exceed- 
ingly fine for both protection and ornament the cork- 
ba'rked maple. When I first procured this tree it 
was mentioned to me as not quite hardy, but 1 have 
found it entirely so and very enduring. The tree 
rises to a hight of twelve feet, is almost exactly 
round, and the foliage is as novel as the bark. t 
has almost the exact form of some of our round- 
topped evergreens. The beeches, which I have 
already spoken of as suitable for hedges, make als,> 
the very best of low windbreaks. In growth they 
are very solid, and the tendency is to retain leaves 
late in the winter. I do not know of anything more- 
superb than the thorns In blossom. None of them 
take a very large amount of root room, and a wall 
of double scarlet thorn would, I imagine, lead a pil- 
grimage of the whole population to gaze on it. A 
single tree is a marvel of beauty. If used for the 
purpose I suggest, plant them about eight feet apart. 
For low-growing windbreaks I would recom- 
mend very especially the Exochorda grandiHora, 
growing about ten feet high. It is very tough m 
wood and very rarely is affected at all by the severest 
weather. I have in a few cases had a few twigs 
killed back. The blossoms are saucer-shaped, large 
and pure white, and in May are among the most 



86 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 



bvyra\fc 

anA 



S » -r fc €. t u,|, V>;\\ "• — ^ 




FIG. II. GROUND PLAN OF COUNTRY PLACE WITH 
ARBOR-VITAE HEDGES. 



WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. B/ 

beautiful of the flowers borne by our shrubs. To 
thicken the growth of such a windbreak or to make 
more beautiful the frontage, I would use with great 
freedom the Japan quince. This shrub occurs in 
red, white and pink flowers. The fruit is often quite 
abundant later in the season and is of the very highest 
quality for making jelly. It is also very valuable 
as a perfume in drawers of clothes. It will send out 
a rich fragrance for years without rotting. I would 
suggest for an ornamental windbreak, a background 
of hemlock or arbor-vitcC, with a row of thorns, 
fronted by a third row of Japan quince. Our gar- 
den quince, where it is entirely hardy, is also a really 
admirable plant for hedge or windbreak. Its growth 
is irregular, but it can be very easily controlled. 

There is some appropriate demand in our orna- 
mental grounds for shelters or hedges of double lines, 
through which we shall l.iave sheltered walks leading 
to sheltered seats. We have several small-growing 
trees suited to this purpose. Among the best are 
the weeping elm, the sassafras, the Judas tree and 
the wild apples. A densely covered walk of the 
latter, run over with wild grapes, makes a remark- 
ably cool retreat in summer and warm in winter. 
Scott, in his "Beautiful Homes," recommends the 
sassafras, cutting back the top, and compelling an 
umbrella form, until the trees weave their tops to- 
gether to make a complete canopy to cover as much 
space as you please. The mulberry can be compelled 
with ease to take on a similar growth. The Judas 
tree is equally good, and a double row of these, arched 
together, is a wonderfully fine sight in spring when, 
before leaves appear, the whole is a mass of bloom. 



88 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

A single tree will cover a square of twenty feet, when 
grown under the best conditions. But it must be 
remembered that we have always to recKon with the 
tendency of this tree to split down directly through 
the heart or to break off large branches. This must 
be prevented by watching for indications of the split, 
and binding it with bands of hoop iron. The 
arrangement suggested above does not forfeit the 
rule of doing nothing antagonistic to nature. Such 
a development of these trees is entirely natural, be- 
cause in all ways the tree suggests massiveness. 

All weave on high a verdant roof, 
That keeps the very sun aloof ; 
Making a twilight soft and green 
Within the column-vaulted scene. 

SECTION I WINDBREAKS FOR SPECIAL PURPOSES. 

It will not be foreign to the purpose of this 
chapter if I suggest windbreaks for special purposes. 
( I ) For bees : Every landowner will do well to have 
an apiary. Bees are indispensable to aid in polleniz- 
ing our fruits, many of which are unable to pollenize 
themselves. Besides half a dozen hives will give 
a ver}^ welcome supply of honey for family use, 
while a surplus is very useful in adding to the farm- 
er's income. The best honey tree in the world is 
the basswooa. This tree bears cutting remarkably 
well, and can be kept, by persistent cutting, in the 
form of a round-headed shrub. I have them thirty 
years old and ten feet in hight and diameter. Now 
let a hedge of this sort be established, and then let 
rise out of it, twenty feet apart, shoots that shall 



WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 89 

make blossoming trees. Yon will then have a shelter 
for your bees as well as honey-making food. But a 
grove or double row of basswoorl, where there is 
abundance of land, will prove exceedingly valuable, 
both as a windbreak and honey producer. This tree 
should be planted much more freely in our streets, 
and everywhere, as the great American shade tree. 
(2) Give to your pastures corners where the w^ind 
cannot penetrate. This, even where your land is not 
extensive, will be no loss, but by affording your 
animals comfort will increase the flow of milk as 
much as good pasturage. It is the misery of animals, 
both in the cold of winter and the heat of summer, 
that makes them less valuable as milk producers. A 
very convenient arrangement can be made by growl- 
ing vines — preferably grapevines — over a group of 
small growing trees, wild apples, or thorns, or Eng- 
lish elms, or any trees with tough wood. You get 
your crops of grapes, or your cowboys do, and your 
cows get their shelter. They will accept of it at all 
seasons, for it is a mistake that the cow does not 
appreciate the beautiful. 1 think I never saw a cow 
lie down with her back to the moon and to a pleasant 
outlook. 

You will probably be astonished to find how 
much the general humidity of your acres is increased 
as you increase your windbreaks. For the same 
reason grow grapes all over your houses and barns. 
Let them climb not on the clapboards, but by a series 
of wires running a few feet apart across the whole 
of the faces of the building. You will then staple 
your wire at convenient distances, and tie the grow- 
ing vines as they climb. Here once more you will 



90 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

get immense crops of grapes; and you will gain 
greatly in the coolness of the barn and stables for 
your cattle, and of the house for its occupants. While 
the temperature is equalized and the soil of your 
land is increased in humidity, you will find that there 
is no gathering of dampness in your walls, provided 
you have followed the directions I have given, that 
is, of tying to wires instead of nailing to the boards. 

The windbreak and the brook — this is the com- 
bination that expresses the most of possible delight. 
The farmer too seldom utilizes his water supply, 
except to serve the barnyard and house. A wind- 
break of willows archinjTf over the brook is not onlv 
useful, but one of the most beautiful pictures that 
nature allows. You have only to procure good sticks 
of willow and insert them in the moist banks. A 
neighbor's willow grove serves as a grand entrance 
way to his mansion, but for me, being on the east- 
ward side of it, it serves as a windbreak. But if you 
have a brook you should at least utilize it in some 
way as a summer retreat. It offers a place for a 
wild grape or bittersweet shelter. Let it be as wild 
as possible. But if the brook runs through the open 
meadow or pasture, a double row of nut trees on the 
banks will do far more than furnish a summer shelter 
and a winter windbreak, it will make home doubly 
joyful for the young folk. Almost all of the nut 
trees, such as butternuts, hickory nuts, walnuts, 
chestnuts, associate pleasantly with water. 

Of vines capable of use in interweaving wind- 
])reaks, the bittersweet is exceedingly fine. It is 
perfectly hardy, very tenacious, and hangs in fes- 
toons and loops of vine and berry. Combined with 



WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC QI 

Virginia creeper we get the gold and the crimson 
together. Among the really good grapes, capable 
of helping us in the way of making shelters, I know 
nothing to surpass the August Giant. This grape 
should be better known on the farm. It is the most 
rapid grower that I have found among nearly one 
hundred varieties. It will make canes twenty, thirty 
and even forty feet long in a single season, while the 
foliage is very large, rich and abundant. The leaves 
are like palmleaf fans. The fruit is also thoroughly 
good. The time of ripening is rather late in central 
New York, but, as a rule, it perfects itself by the first 
to the tenth of October. The Gaertner and the Her- 
bert are also very large-leaved varieties and of mag- 
nificent growth, while their fruit is of the highest 
quality. They will both need considerable care, 
because not absolutely hardy, nor self-pollenizing, 
while August Giant will take excellent care of itself. 
It will quickly cover an arbor or interlace your trees, 
and will not be easily torn down by wind. 

But in the consideration of this subject I can 
do nothing so well for you as to say, get into some 
wild section and study nature. See what beautiful 
things she can construct, and then go you and do 
likewise, or as near likewise as your opportunities 
afford. The most beautiful things in this world are 
in the forest openings and in the wild glens and in 
the forests. 



"Whether we look, or whether we listen. 
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten ; 
Every clod feels a stir of might, 

An instinct within it that reaches and towers, 
And, groping blindly above it for light. 

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers." 




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I— I 

6 
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WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 93 

Planting for winter is too much overlooked — 
that is, planting our grounds in such a way that they 
will be cheerful and warmer to the eye. But it is 
one of the most important matters in the country 
to warm up the landscape during cheerless months. 
I have before spoken of the use of the red-bark dog- 
wood. The high-bush cranberry is also admirable, 
although as it gets older its tallest stalks are liable 
to get topheavy and split down. The barberry, in 
its several varieties, makes a charming plant for this 
purpose. It is a delightful winter bush. The 
Euonymus is a bush that for early winter cannot 
be surpassed. Its growth is irregular and its form 
uncertain. I cannot recommend either this or the 
high-bush cranberry, excepting as they are inter- 
spaced with other bushes, as good for either hedges 
or windbreaks. However, the man who studies 
nature will find that he can use all of this class of 
trees and shrubs for beauty and utility alike. 

One of my nooks, made up in part of hemlock 
hedges and in part of these warm winter shrubs, I 
call my Sunlight Catcher. It catches the full rays 
of the winter's suns, and has complete protection 
from the northern and western winds. It is often 
a delightful spot during TTovember and December, 
and in the spring there are March days when it is an 
invigorating retreat. I can find a few spears of 
grass or a dandelion blossom almost in midwinter, 
when a single one is worth more than an acre of 
them in June. The hedge itself is eight feet high, 
curved completely around toward the northwest, 
while to the south at a distance of twenty-five feet 
is another windbreak. But now note the need of 



94 HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

making things match well together. In here stands 
a great barberry bush, that all winter is so red that 
you can warm your fingers by it. Here come the 
earliest violets, like finger-tips of Spring thrust 
through the snow. 

While planting windbreaks we have of course 
to consult our neighbors' wishes and tastes, if they 
are near enough to be affected by what we propose. 
It is morally illegal to cut off the pleasures of a neigh- 
bor by a high hedge, a row of trees or a fence. With 
neighborly good will we can generally manage not 
to infringe on other's tastes or desires. I trust we 
shall see before long co-operation and town systems 
of establishing defenses against the wind. No per- 
son should be privileged to destroy that which affects 
his neighbor's crops and comforts as well as his own. 
If street trees should be under the protection of the 
law, so also should windbreaks and strips of forest 
land. Towns should assume the right in very 
exposed points to plant trees at public expense on 
private property. Co-operative tree planting, T 
think, may yet do a great deal for the general good 
of horticulture. I would especially recommend the 
establishment of rural societies, whose object it shall 
be to set out trees for the public welfare, and to pro- 
tect others in which the public has a general interest. 
Such societies will have much also to do in the way 
of investigating the causes of tree diseases, and their 
remedies. In central New York such a society has 
existed at Clinton for forty-five years, and it has fos- 
tered rural improvement in every direction. The 
meetings are held monthly, and the range of discus- 
sion covers every topic pertaining to the welfare of 



WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 95 

rural homes. Clinton, Conn., has perhaps the parent 
society of this sort. Street trees are planted hy these 
associations; but better yet is the advice given to 
private owners, in the way of selecting- trees and 
plants for their lawns and hedges. 

SECTION II BIRD CULTURE. 

So very important at the present time is the 
cultivation of birds in the interest of horticulture 
and agriculture that I make a separate section of the 
discussion. Hedges and windbreaks may serve a 
very important end, both in furnishing shelter and 
in furnishing food for these feathered friends of ours. 
We are learning that success in agriculture depends 
much upon their alliance. Among the more impor- 
tant in this section are the catbirds, robins, song- 
sparrows and their cousins, wdth the goldfinches 
and other seed eaters. The first of these destroy 
vast quantities of insects, while the latter destroy the 
seeds of noxious weeds. The 1:)enefit that accrues to 
us is so great that we can hardly succeed in some 
branches of horticulture without them. Apart from 
the benefit which they do us in the w^ay of destroying 
our foes, we must count m the advantage to us from 
making home delightful with their songs. Man 
cannot live by 1)read alone — that is, he cannot live in 
a manly way. I will go so far as to say there is no 
other object in hedge planting and the growing of 
windbreaks more important than that of bird protec- 
tion and bird fostering. The destruction .of ou;- 
feathered friends is but one degree worse than their 
neglect. 




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WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 97 

It is winter as I write these words. The snow- 
covers the ground and is piled deep in every direc- 
tion. But as I look out of my window I see pine 
grosbeaks on my barberry bushes and high-bush 
cranberries ; and there are dozens of chickadees, nut- 
hatches and woodpeckers working at bones which 
my children have tied to the trees near the doors. 
These birds add much to the good cheer of life, and 
to feed them inculcates the very noblest sentiment 
of sympathy with God and God's world of life. I 
am sure that no girl brought up in this manner would 
ever wear a dead bird on her hat, or even the wing of 
one. I am farther sure that my children will appre- 
ciate better the relations of things ; love free nature 
better, and be students of that horticulture which 
includes all life. I should indeed be sorry if they 
looked upon horticulture as covering only the grow- 
ing of corn and fruit — all things which cannot sing 
and cannot express gratitude. The end of land cul- 
ture is noble men, not merely potatoes and parsnips. 
Put these things together, and you will see that you 
have not planted your hedges and made beauty and 
comfort for yourself alone, but for all that is 
animate. 

The birds must be fed ; this is our first duty and 
relation to them, — to make our places just as fully 
theirs as our owm. But our policy is also to feed 
them at the least possible cost to ourselves. A Tar- 
tarian honeysuckle hedge or windbreak of five rods' 
leno-th will feed all the robins and catbirds that will 
come to any household, and will do it just when it is 
desirable to attract them away from the raspberry 
gardens and from the blackberries. The crop of red 

7 



98 



HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 



berries on these bushes is enormous, and while they 
are to us bitter and worthless, they seem to be pecu- 
liarly grateful to the fruit-eating birds. Perhaps 
next in importance is a row of mountain ash trees 




S^vee.^ 



FIG. 14. GROUND PLAN OF COUNTRY PLACE, 

SHELTERED BY NORWAY SPRUCE. 



grown as a windbreak. If you prefer, you may com- 
bine the two bv insertinsr a mountain ash at every 
twenty or thirty feet in your honeysuckle hedge. 
This mountain ash tree grows to a hight of about 



WINDBREAKS^ SHELTERS^ ETC. 99 

twenty-five or thirty feet. A single fully-grown tree 
will feed flocks of birds from early August until 
late in winter. All winter through, birds of passage 
will drop down to a breakfast or a dinner. This en- 
livens your house besides making it a bird paradise. I 
should never establish a home without a liberal plant- 
ing of the mountain ash ; and to make them doubb/ 
useful, I would not only have them singly near my 
house, but growing as a windbreak at some distance. 
The twigs are set very thick and intertwined, so that 
they constitute a very excellent shield against the 
wind at all seasons. Another remarkably fine bush, 
both for its beauty and for the food which it affords 
the birds, I have before specified as the high-bush 
cranberry. If it were not for the liability of this 
bush to become sprawling with age, it would be ad- 
mirable for a tall hedge or low windbreak. The ten- 
dency can be counteracted by running a couple of 
lines of strong wire, with an occasional loop, about 
the heavier stalks. The flowers are inconspicuous, 
but the berries, which begin to color in July a bright 
yellow, hang in most prolific bunches of great beauty. 
In August these have become deepened in color to a 
dark, rich crimson. The birds rarely feed on these 
berries before winter, that is, if there be an abun- 
dance of the mountain ash. But in midwinter, cedar 
birds, stray robins and pine grosbeaks get from them 
many a hearty meal. The magnificent coloring and 
the hearty good nature of the pine grosbeak makes 
it a remarkably welcome bird. It is the winter robin. 
How far we can modify the migratory habits of 
birds by giving shelter and food, I do not dare to 
say, although some ornithologists insist that they do 

LVtt 



lOO HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS^ SHELTERS, ETC. 

not go South on account of the cHmate; but purely 
on account of the insufficiency of food at the North 
during the winter months. I am sure that we can 
do very much to retain our visitors through a longer 
season, and make them feel that this is not a mere 
summer home. I have noted the catbird catching 
liies and eating grapes about October first, indicating 
a shortage of the food which he prefers. But my pet 
bird (I have six catbirds' nests in my bushes and 
hedges, all of them members of my family) always 
sings to me the day before going away, and that is 
about the twenty-eighth of September. These glo- 
rious musicians, the mocking-birds of the North, do 
not sing at all as a rule after about August first, but 
this one, that nests every year near my library bal- 
cony and considers himself a little the most at home 
with us, hunts me up the day before leaving, peeps in 
at the window and sings a long and tender farewell. 
I do not think he needs to go away because food is cut 
off, or because of bad weather. It may be that he 
knows something that he likes is just then getting 
ripe down South, and he proposes to make it a visit. 
However, I am sure we can make these beautiful and 
useful friends feel at home with us by giving them 
acceptable nesting places and food. This one bird, 
of all others, most desirable as a singer and friend, 
will not come to us or near to our homes unless we 
furnish coverts for hiding, such as he will find in 
hedges and windbreaks. After you have once made 
the catbirds feel at home with you, so that they pour 
out their music without fear or restraint, you will 
never be willing to pass a summer without them. 
The berry grower is very likely to disagree with 




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102 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

me, at first thought, with reference to the neighbor- 
hood of fruit-eaters. Bear this in mind, that if you 
plant a very few bushes of berries or a single cherry 
tree you are likely to find that you have only a supply 
for either the birds or yourself, and the birds will find 
out the same thing. As a consequence you will 
probably go without cherries and berries, and the 
birds will take them. The better plan is to count 
the birds into the family, and plant for both. I do 
not easily forget a father who, many years ago, I 
detected grafting the wild cherry trees with sweeter 
sorts, along the edge of the woods, in order that, as 
he said, "the birds might have all they wanted." 
That father was not only wise as a bird friend, but 
wise as a horticulturist. 

SECTION III THE WOMAN^S CORNER. 

Of course every woman is interested in all 
measures to beautify home and make it more valu- 
able, but there are certain feminine needs not quite 
covered in the general plan of horticultural work. 
For instance, woman is specifically the sewer of rents 
and the artist of the needle. As such she should 
have ( I ) a sewing balcony. Let me describe one. 
It is in the northeast corner of the house over a 
veranda. The building to south and west cuts ofi^ 
the afternoon sun. There is a grapevine that climbs 
up the north side of the veranda below, then goes 
up over a strong trellis that reaches over the balcony. 
It is a wild grape and a rampant grower, and it has 
made a complete awning overhead. It bears profit- 
ably a good jelly grape. The floor of the balcon}' 



WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. IO3 

is made waterproof. Opening upon it is a double 
door from the wife's chamber. It is called in house- 
hold terms, "My sewing balcony." I cannot posi- 
tively say that she does much sewing there ; but I do 
know that it is a most delightful spot of a summer 
afternoon, where one might sew if so inclined, and 
with great comfort. A hammock swings across one 
corner, admiral^ly fixed for an afternoon siesta. I 
will not say that the hammock and the book do not 
frequently displace the needle. The outlook is over 
lawns of flowers and trees, over hedges and groves, 
down the most beautiful of valleys, and overlooking 
hills that hold villages in their bosoms. Woman has 
a right to such retreats, sheltered from the sun, and 
peculiarly her own. She does the hardest task— the 
fretting, nerve-wearing work. 

(2) Woman should have a living arbor for a 

little tea partv of half a dozen neighbors. Let me 

also describe one of these. A circle of arbor-vitge, 

fifteen or twenty feet in diameter, and grown together 

overhead. Inside, the branches are cut out, up to a 

hight of fifteen feet. The only entrance is where 

you pull aside the branches. Inside you find a little 

table, a small solid, plain writing-desk, and half a 

dozen hardwood chairs that will endure the rain. A 

hammock swings on one side, which can be stretched 

across when it is desired. This shelter is adjacent to 

a fine croquet ground, and, if you please, you may 

invite your friends to a game, alternated with rest. 

Here a wife may fix a charming enclosure for a baby, 

giving him plenty of freedom as well as protection 

from the sun, or she may have her friends for a tea 

party. I have known a club of ladies meeting m 



104 HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS^ SHELTERS, ETC. 

such a close retreat, and heartily enjoying the read- 
ing of their papers. 

(3) Woman should have a cozy nook for some 
outdoor household work, such as washing and hang- 
ing clothes to dry. This is the meanest desecration 
of a beautiful lawn — a lot of shirts and socks and 
"sich like" on exhibition once every week. Some 
of these are not yet mended, and they are not attrac- 
tive, at the best. A delicate housewife hates to pro- 
claim to all the world the condition of the family 
wardrobe. Why should not every beautiful home 
have a retreat and shelter, behind a windbreak, or 
high hedge, where famil}^ affairs of this sort may 
be kept private. It is not a tax on a householder to 
have a cistern in such a nook where the water can be 
easily drawn, and where the clothes may be hung out 
to dry without much walking or carrying. There is 
also the safety of the clothes to be looked after, and 
that is secured by such a retired spot. At any rate, 
let our pleasant country homes get rid of the display 
of their weekly cleansing. 

(4) Woman needs her particular flower nook, 
where she can work a little, rest a little, think a little, 
and sleep in a hammock if she likes. I assure you 
I shall feel that my book has done some good if I 
discover hereafter that I have induced some of our 
housekeepers to take an afternoon sleep of a single 
hour. Especially should farmers and farmers' wives 
have a rest corner, shut out of sight of the ordinary 
work of house and field, so that there will be sugges- 
tions of rest and peace, and none at all of toil. They 
will be able to do more in the long run by not running 
life's machinery down in great speed. 



CHAPTER VI. 

NEGLECTED BEAUTY. 

I should like to write a chapter on the neglected 
beautiful things that surround us, a sort of eye- 
opener to help folk see what is right before their 
faces. I know a man — not cut from a fashion plate 
^ — who sees none of the things that most people see, 

an impracticable fellow ; but he sees everything that 
we do not see. If you will visit him, you will findi 
his barn is almost embowered with grapevines and 
bittersweet and Virginia creeper. He has cut holes 
for his team to drive through. "Pretty, ain't it," 
he says, "and it's sort o' comfortin' to see the red, 
and then I get lots of grapes for nothin'. The vines 
break the wind, and some days it's mighty nice to 
get inside of them. It's most like having two roofs 
on your barn, and growin' a crop between them. 
( Besides the birds like it. There's a dozen nests of 

them up there — all snug as you please. Did you 
ever notice the two kinds of bittersweet ? This kind 
is the male and don't bear any seed. That clematis 
over there is female. See what splendid bunches of 
seed pods it has, like balls of flaxen hair." So he 
rattles on, full of natural enthusiasm, and I find he 
is quite a student as well as observer. In his shon 
he has a collection of esthetic birds' nests, the finest 
I ever saw or heard of. He has collected all the 
springs on his upper lot, and down below has scooped 



I06 HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 



"Dec I Aoto vx s Tvcei a-ndt Vx'^e-' VY\-»\<Abreo.K 




FIG. l6. GROUND PLAN OF COUNTRY PLACE. 



NEGLECTED BEAUTY. lO? 

out a pond to hold water ; behind and around are 
huge willows, and here is a perfect paradise for his 
fowls. An arbor of stone down the swale, with a 
few bits of hedges adjacent, all the work of his own 
hand, makes a (juaint but delightful combination. I 
asked him how he came to think of it. ''Why, they 
came up there ; and I didn't want to cut them after 
they had got up, so I trimmed them into hedges. 
The arbor is just a lot of the stones that I w^anted 
picked up. It's better than a heap of stones, isn't it? 
Folks ain't observing enough. If they were, natiire 
would help them to a good many nice-looking things, 
just as easy as she does to so many old brush heaps 
and stone piles. That's my reckoning. And them 
things don't pay, either; but it does pay to have 
things pretty and nice. If a fellow keeps his eyes 
open he doesn't have to work so hard. You see I 
didn't hardly have to touch these things — just took 
advantage of what nature did. Did you ever see 
anything finer than that old rail fence? It's just a 
wall of crimson, and I didn't plant one of them Vir- 
ginia creepers ; I only let them alone. They took 
possession of the old fence and made it beautiful. 
But it would pay anyone to plant such vines along 
his old fences, just to look at. Don't you agree with 
me?" I told him I thought I did. But said I, "What 
have you got there?" "Oh, that's a bunch of elms, 
and those grapes came up and run all over them. 
Just see how they hang down in ropes all over ! It's 
a great windbreak, that is ; and there's another 
mighty nice one over there — those evergreens. I 
haven't got so many jimcracks as most folks have — 
I never bought half so much ; but you bet I look out 



I08 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

not to let some one spoil what's been planted for 
me, without money and without price." Among 
his treasures is a plum tree hedge, not of much value 
for plums, but useful around his henyard. 

I found him rather too conservative about cut- 
ting, so that there was a tendency to thicket growth 
in his groves, and even around his house. His love 
for trees and vines, and all the artist touches of 
nature, goes down to the minutest twig, and it hurts 
him not to save every tree. Each bush gets to be 
dear to him. I am afraid that this temperament is 
not quite the thing for a farmer, unless he can have 
a large area and keep his thickets at a little distance 
from his house. It is a duty to cut liberally and 
judiciously, as well as to plant freely and wisely. 
There are. hundreds of places where the ax is needed 
more than the spade. The art of cutting is the fine 
art of horticulture — finer than that of planting. 
Physical nature is never complete without a man m 
it to trim and guide. Yet between the two, that is, 
wild nature and an untrained man, give me tlie 
former. What this man, my neighbor, had learned 
was to do exactly what a man is designed for, to take 
advantage of what nature does, to aid her and not 
to thwart her in the accomplishment of her best work. 
He could see along nature's lines. 

I sincerely believe the worst thing about our 
country homes is imitation, the desire to plant what 
others plant, to do what others do, and in general 
to have what others have. For really, there are 
rarely two spots of land that allow of just the same 
treatment, nor are there two building spots where 
exactly similar houses ought to be put up. A house 



NEGLECTED BEAUTY. IO9 

should be built to, or out of, the spot where it stands, 
as if it grew there, quite as much as the trees grew 
there that were cut down to make room for it. Those 
trees did not grow with just the same physiognomy 
as trees in another locality. Then a lot ought not 
to be like a girl's apron, full of posies, but should 
have in it or on it those plants or trees wdiich fit 
the lay of the land. One may accumulate a vast 
amount of fine things in themselves, and yet the 
whole of them be anything but beautiful in their 
relation to each other and to the house. Perhaps 
you do not need a hedge at all. If not, pray do not 
have it, certainly not because Smith has one. I know 
a village where a man put up a board fence with the 
two middle boards crossed in the form of an X. 
Inside of two years there were eighteen other such 
fences put up in the same village. One of these 
was quite enough. 

My friend R — saw a cut-leaved weeping birch 
and admired it. He ordered two set out in his door- 
yard at once. One was enough ; two spoiled the 
oddity of the peculiar tree, and the pleasure of look- 
ing at that one. Oddities should be odd, and not too 
freely used. But if you will study a country village 
you w^ill rarely find much individuality in the plant- 
ing. There will be perhaps three or four types of 
houses, of yards, of shrubberies, of orchards. Every- 
body is trying to do what everybody else is doing; 
trying to think, trying to believe, trying to do and 
trying to be happy in the same way. If a man like 
Thoreau comes along, who sees wild nature and 
enjoys it, they cannot either understand or tolerate 
him — it must be allowed that he cannot tolerate 



no HEDGES, WINDBREAKS^ SHELTERS^ ETC. 

them. By the way, it was Thoreau who said, ''The 
forms of beauty fall naturally around the path of 
him who is in the performance of his natural work, 
as the curled shaving drops from the plane, and 
borings cluster around the augur. Trees make an 
admirable fence to a landscape. Art can never 
match the luxury and superfluity of nature." In 
another mood, he says, ''Men nowhere lead a natural 
life, round which the vines cling and which the elm 
willingly shadows. Man will desecrate nature with 
his touch, and so the beauty of the world remains 
veiled to him." If you are doing the most wonder- 
ful thing in the world, that is, making a home, let it 
be your home — the home or house of you — not of 
the ubicjuitous, everlasting and universal Mr. They. 

If you will go about the country and think of 
it you will be surprised at the vast variety of the wild 
plants, and their combinations, and the novelty of 
every form and shade. There are nowhere two 
groups just alike, rarely two trees that resemble each 
other. I do not remember anywhere anything beau- 
tiful in the wild state that had repetition, except, 
possibly, white pine trees. These sometimes occur 
along the mountain sides in absolute profusion and 
much alike, both in grouping, and in color, and In 
form. Still, even here, nature manages to give us 
a flush of novelty at every rod. Sumac bushes blis- 
ter the sides of the hills with fiery crimson, but no 
two bunchings of these bushes are alike, not even 
in color. 

It will not be out of line with the purport of this 
chapter to call attention to the neglected values of 
stone on our stony farms. A stone wall, ten or 



NEGLECTED BEAUTY. 1 1 1 

twelve feet high, built of waste or troublesome mate- 
rial, can often be had, to the great advantage of the 
sheltered property. Against this wall may be planted 
a row of grapes, to train over it, or over a trellis 
leaning against the wall. Or a row of pear trees 
may be grown in like manner and trained espalier. 
This plan of training fruit trees is not adopted to 
any extent in this country, but is practical almost 
anywhere, and by it may be produced much fine 
fruit. This plan can be especially recommended for 
growing peach trees. The wall will probably be 
sufficient also for a quince garden. Such walls, 
considering endurance and effect, would be cheaper 
in the long run than high board fences, such as I 
have known to be used in northern and central New 
York. and Massachusetts. The shelterino- effect of 
such a wall is the same as I have already noticed in 
the use of evergreen hedges. Under the lee of them 
I have seen dandelions blossoming in December. It 
makes a capital shelter for winter violets, for the 
Helleborus niger, and for hardy chrysanthemums. 



112 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 



Vo--r-rrx Crops 




FIG. 17. GROUND PLAN OF FARM PLOT, WITH TAR- 
TARIAN HONEYSUCKLE HEDGES. 



CHAPTER VII. 

MISPLACED HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, ETC. 

I have already spoken of the necessity of study 
before planting. We must place a little more em- 
phasis on this matter and consider it in brief detail. 
The majority of planters look only at a thing which 
is beautiful in its solitary unrelated charms. The 
educated eye finds fault with detail that is out of 
relation to the whole scene. I am frequently asked 
to secure for someone three or four weeping cut- 
leaved birches, or some other tree charming in itself. 
What will he do with them? Probably plant them 
in a row, as my friend S — has done. Does he not 
get all the charm from one ? Two or three bring him 
the idea of a row. But a row of such trees is not 
beautiful unless there is an object in having such a 
row. So with any other charming thing. A hedge 
is often misplaced because it is only an effort to get 
a pretty thing multiplied. But more frequently it 
is an effort to have a hedge at all events somewhere. 
The owner has not studied his place, or the relations 
of its parts. His first impulse is to plant along the 
roadside. But the old reason for a road fence is 
gone. A lawn is far more beautiful if left open to 
the highway. Animals do not any longer ru!! at 
large, and our neighbors are not our foes. Besides 
the expense of street hedges is a useless cost. They 
generally run along lines of trees where the shade 
8 1 13 



114 HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

injures them. But a hedge may also be misplaced 
elsewhere. It should not cut ofif our own view 
toward a pleasant scene. It should often break up 
a view mto pictures. 

Windbreaks must be endured as a necessity, 
sometimes, along lines where we do not wish to have 
them. But neither windbreak, nor hedge, nor tree 
are out of place because they do not let you see 
everywhere without interruption and at once. A 
true landscape home is one where you get glimpses 
and pictures of hill, or valley, or town from different 
points ; not the whole at once, and always the same. 
I have seen some wicked cutting of trees and destruc- 
tion of hedges because the new possessor of a home 
was ambitious to see "far off." He did not wait long 
enough to see that what he cut did no harm what- 
ever, but on the contrary was an artistic supplement 
to nature. The resident does not have the same 
needs as the visitor — the latter desires to see the 
whole landscape at one sweep, the resident enjoys 
it better by glimpses and pictures. Study your 
place ; study all its possibilities before you take either 
spade to plant, or saw to trim, or ax to cut. Either 
tool in the hands of a horticulturist fool will create 
more folly in an hour than you can undo in half a 
century. Go around the tree; walk up and down 
the hedge ; study it in all its relations and all its 
possible relations; then wait a few months and study 
it once more at another season. You may be con- 
verted to see that it is above all things not to be cut. 
But if after that you do cut, you will do it wisely and 
not for after-repentance. 

The spirit of cutting something is only an 



MISPLACED HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, ETC. II5 

inheritance of barbarism. The Malay runs amuck 
among his neighbors ; the farmer run.s amuck among 
trees. He must cut something when the spirit is 
on ; so down goes the grand okl tree that stood one 
hundred years before that feUow was in his cradle : 
a tree that has housed a thousand birds. I know a 
man who would go crazy at certain periods of the 
year if he could not lord it over his trees. He plants 
orchards, and cuts down others. He is surrounded 
by a queer combination of the garden of Eden and 
the Sahara desert. Another neighbor has so identi- 
fied himself with every bush that he cannot endure 
to have the old wreckage cut away. His house is 
in a wood lot. Seek the middle road. Remove 
promptly the decayed and the hopeless; Init love 
trees with a tenderness that is protective. Not long 
since some of the pioneer poplars of the streets of 
Chicago were slain. The people could not stop it. 
They "begged and used every possible argument in 
vain. When the foreman came to the last tree, a 
quiet old gentleman who seemed too gentle to say 
''shoo !" to a fly, walked up to him, looked him in the 
eye, and with infinite contempt said, "Save the last 
one, sir, — to hang yourself on." 

You can, however, do very little in the way of 
developing the grandest site witli hedges. win(l1)reaks 
and shelters, if you have misplaced your house. I 
am astonished at the persistence which Americans 
show in building close by the roadside, where they 
get no advantages except publicity and dust. The 
true place for a house is, other things being equal, 
as near the center of your property as it can be placed. 
Of course we are to consider the relation of the 



Il6 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

parts; the relative hight of the land and convenience 
to water. The house must be upon high land — on a 
knoll if possible. It should be situated to take 
advantage of swales, for easy approach, if the land 
be hilly, and equally for convenient drainage. Yet 
the general rule holds good, to get away from the 
street, and as near as possible to the center of your 
land. This is a sound principle even on a lot of sev- 
eral acres. It is no loss of time that you involve 
yourself in while reaching your own door ; for on the 
other hand, you are saving half the work of going 
from your house to different points of your ground ; 
that is, while you are farther from the street you are 
nearer your gardens, orchards, pastures and mead- 
ows. You can more easily direct the work, and 
more thoroughly enjoy what is going on. But the 
real point is this, that by such a residence you have 
the sensation that the whole lot is your own. I think 
that one result will be that you will not have a bit 
of shaven lawn in front, over which you run the 
lawn mower every day, but no end of neglected 
lawns and other uncared-for property in the rear. 
The house being placed far back and drives estab- 
lished, you have a splendid opening for hedges to 
border your driveways, and to break up your whole 
plot into lawns, each one with its own idea. You 
will live among your gardens and your orchards and 
your shrubbery, all of which invite the aid of shel- 
ters, windbreaks, and different sorts of dividing lines. 
Bear in mind that a man who lays out a homestead 
that does not express an idea might as well live in 
the woods, or in the street. 

Now I cannot get on rightly without saying that 



MISPLACED HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, ETC. II7 

the notion that there can be a purely architecturally 
handsome house is absurd. If a house is not built 
to the place it stands on, and for that place, as well 
as on that place, it is a humbug. It should have its 
windows, its balconies, its verandas, and all sorts 
of outlooks, adjusted to what can be seen and what 
can be heard, all around, out of doors. Outdoors 
and indoors should equally speak to each other. A 
professional architect seldom has the slightest con- 
ception of this need. He thinks only of the house ; 
and it would be the same house if he planned it to 
stand somewhere else. But never should two houses 
be built exactly alike, because no two places are 
exactly alike where houses should stand. If you are 
going to plant hedges and other beautiful surround- 
ings, do so in conjunction with and in relation to the 
house. A house should grow out of its position as 
much as the trees and the hedges do. 

Nor will I speak of hedges in another way, as 
something that must be had, ''you know," as a sort 
of conventional necessity. They are to be, and must 
be got in somehow. The result is a lot of green 
walls in the way, and every one of which ought to 
be dug out and burned. A right sort of hedge is a 
necessity ; a wrong sort of hedge is about as bad a 
thing as a man can own. The right hedge ought to 
be; and it ought to be right there where it is. So 
you have first to study your place, to comprehend it, 
to take in all its possibilities, and plant accordingly. 
Nature generously gives you a hint here and there, 
if you are a teachable pupil. "Do you not see," she 
says, ''that a drive could come easily up that swale, 
or around that knoll, and how thoroughly graceful 



MISPLACED HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, ETC. II9 

the outlines of a bordering hedge would appear?" 
Then she takes you by the arm and says, "See there! 
The wind jumps right down from that hill and hits 
in front of your barn. What will you do about it? 
I, old Mother Nature, know what you ought to do ; 
I. have seen this for a long while, and I wanted you 
here for this particular purpose. You ought to have 
a windbreak along that west line. It must not cut 
off your outlook toward the bluff or the glen. It 
need not do so." So when you once really make 
the acquaintance of nature, she trots you about your 
place pointing out needs and possibilities, until you 
say, "By Jove! It's ten times as much of a property 
as I thought. And now with honest planting I am 
not going merely to utilize it, I am going to improve 
it. How clever nature is to leave us some things to 
do ourselves — but also to hint to us what is best to be 
done." Then she has her "studies" of all sorts; 
around in the wild lots, where she sends us to learn 
more about the beautiful and the useful. 

Scott, in his "Beautiful Homes" cautions us 
against hedging our grounds, so that the passer-by 
cannot enjoy their beauty — "an absurd and unchris- 
tian custom," as much out of place as if we adopted 
walled courts and barred windows. This is a good 
argument when used against street hedges, which I 
have before stated should be abolished altogether, as 
out of taste and generally a nuisance. Where the 
streets are not artificially lightened, hedges darken 
the sidewalk, and, if they are tall, they drip water 
on the pedestrian in a rainstorm or tear away his 
umbrella. If kept well trimmed and low, they still 
have no object along the streets. I insist that we 



I20 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

shall always have this thought foremost: Does that 
which we do express a rational idea? 

The chief danger with amateur planters is that, 
bewitched with the sense of the beautiful, they will 
wish to do too much. They wish everything beau- 
tiful that they see, or hear of, planted on their own 
grounds. Trees and shrubs are crowded together, 
and nothing is complete. Care and worry set in 
with dissatisfaction. A beautiful liedge becomes 
the ugliest thing in the world if not needed. It 
might as well be in the parlor as to be crowded into 
an over-full lawn. In and for itself alone it is beau- 
tiful; but that beauty is spoiled by being out of rela- 
tion to other things. As a rule it should always sug- 
gest utility. It is closely associated with drives and 
walks and shelter, and these are never to be put in 
for mere ornament. Therefore not a rod of wind- 
break, or hedge, that is not needed right where it 
is placed, should ever be planted. 

To create a sympathy wath nature is the highest 
object of any book that deals with a section of nature. 
Nothing good can be done without it. We may stir 
up an enthusiasm for planting something, but the 
danger is that nothing exists in the minds of the 
planters, corresponding to what they propose to 
create outside of them and around them. A thou- 
sand hedges may eventuate in nine hundred 
wretched, neglected, obtrusive nuisances, struggling 
across the land, and only one hundred really good 
hedges. I should like to excite a mild passion for 
cutting as well as planting; a desire to remove the 
disagreeable, the offensive, and the idiotic. But in 
both directions, go slowly. Study first ; experiment 



MISPLACED HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS,, ETC. 121 

as you go ; waste no time nor money on great enter- 
prises that you have not the cukure or knowledge to 
hring to perfection. 

If a lawn should express an idea, a hedge or a 
windbreak should have a part, and a very articulate 
part, in that conception. Most of our American 
landscape planting expresses confusion. A rightly- 
planted place has something to say to the passer-by. 
This group, this tree, this hedge, are here because 
they ought to be here. They are as exactly adjusted 
in the well-planted homestead as words in a well- 
expressed sentence. 

'■'Nothing in this world is single, 

All things by a law divine 
In one another s being mingle — " 

Every farmer should be a student of nature, and 
so should everyone who dares to make his home in 
the countr}^ He should try to comprehend the 
wonderful material that he handles — the earth, the 
soil, the air, the trees, the insects, animal life and 
vegetable life. To this end our rural schools should 
point all their endeavor — to enable the young to 
understand the things they must touch and see. I 
shall be glad if I can get you to enter into the inner 
life of the hedge and of the hedge plant; the rela- 
tion it bears to other plants; its inhabitants and 
what they want. Work with a microscope as well 
as a spade. I was one day about to destroy a lot of 
new insects on one of my hedges, but my boy, better 
educated, checked me with the exclamation, ''Hold 
on, father ! that is a friend of ours ; it is a parasite, 
a new one, that has just appeared to destroy the hop 
louse." You will be a verv clean man in all senses 



122 HEDGES;, WINDBREAKS^ SHELTERS^ ETC. 

of the word before you will be a good horticul- 
turist. You will be something* of a poet, and 
have a fullness of natural piety as well as careful 
scholarship. 

Lewes, in his "Studies of Animal Life and 
Vegetable Life," says : ''Come with me and lovingly 
study nature, as she breathes, palpitates and works 
under myriad forms of life — forms unseen, unsus- 
pected, or unheeded by the mass of ordinary men. 
Our course may be through park and meadow, gar- 
den and land, over the swelling hills and spacious 
heaths, beside the running and sequestered streams, 
along the tawny coasts, out on the dark and danger- 
ous reefs, or under dripping caves and slippery 
ledges. It matters little where we go ; everywhere 
— in the air above, the earth beneath and waters 
under the earth — we are surrounded with life. Our 
studies will be of life. Nature lives ; every pore is 
bursting with life; every death is only a new birth, 
every grave a cradle. Around us, above us, beneath 
us, the great mystic drama of creation is being 
enacted, and we will not even consent to be 
spectators. The life that stirs within us stirs in all 
else. We are all parts of one transcendant whole. 

*'The scales fall from our eyes when we think 
of this ; it is as if a new sense had been vouchsafed 
to us, and we learn to look at nature with a more 
intimate and personal love. If the sequestered cool- 
ness of the w^ood tempt us to saunter into its check- 
ered shade we are saluted by the murmurous din 
of insects, the twitter of birds, the scrambling of 
squirrels, the startled rush of unseen beasts, all tell- 
ing how populous is this seeming solitude. We 



MISPLACED HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, ETC. 123 

pluck a flower, and in its bosom we see many a 
charming insect busy at its appointed labor. 
We pick up a fallen leaf, and if nothing is 
visible on it, there is probably the trace of 
an insect larva hidden in its tissues and await- 
ing development. Our very Mother Earth is 
formed of the debris of life. Begin our study 
where we please, we shall never come to an 
end — our curiosity will never slacken. Get a micro- 
scope. If you cannot borrow, boldly buy one. Few 
purchases will yield you so much pleasure. Soon 
contempt for anything in nature will give place to 
reverence. Soon you will discover that you do not 
live an independent life. You are dependent on the 
air, the earth, the sunlight, the flowers, the plants, 
the animals, and created things, directly or indi- 
rectly. Nor is the moral dependence less than the 
physical. We cannot isolate ourselves if we would." 
Perhaps you think these passages from Mr. 
Lewes out of place in a book on hedges, trees and 
windbreaks. But I assure you that you will never 
be a good horticulturist until you get at the spirit 
as well as the form of things — until you have put 
yourself into relation to the All Life, that expresses 
itself in infinite, varied forms. No, you cannot even 
plant a hedge wisely without a sort of natural rev- 
erence, and an honest sympathy with all of nature 
about you. 

I care not how men trace their ancestry, 

To ape or Adam ; let them please their whim ; 

But I in June am midway to believe 

A tree among my far progenitors; 



124 HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS^ SHELTERS^ ETC. 

Such sympathy is mine with all the race, 
Such mutual recognition, vaguely sweet, 
There is between us. Surely there are times 
When they consent to own me of their kin, 
And condescend to me, and call me cousin. 
Murmuring faint lullabys of eldest time 
Forgotten, and yet dumbly felt with thrills 
Moving the lips, though fruitless of the words. 




FIG. 19. VILLAGE PLOT WITH HEMLOCK HEDGES 



CHAPTER VIII. 

RENOVATING THE DESERTED HOMESTEAD. 

This chapter is for that growing number of 
people who have taken up an old farm or deserted 
homestead, to renovate it. Such a place has some 
invaluable properties now. Beware how you try to 
raodernize it by stripping it of its antiquity, its old 
associations, and its historic verity. Go slowly and 
carefully with every stroke. Do not cut an old tree 
until you must, or are sure that you ought. You 
may find that you can enjoy the solid-built, old- 
fashioned house without tearing it down. I am 
sure that I can find for you a tree that is run over 
with grapevines, a pile of stones covered with clema- 
tis, a group of old evergreens with bittersweet fes- 
tooned through it, or at least a stone fence clothed 
with Virginia creeper. These may need the touch 
of man, but without modernizing it. 

First of all, in handling such a place as this, find 
out what its spirit is, and do not break in upon or dis- 
turb that. Association goes far to multiply charms. 
History is not a mere story, it is a life ; and this old 
place of yours has a history, and, therefore, it has a 
life of its own that must not be mutilated. For this 
reason T urge, by preference, the purchase of the old 
family homestead or ancestral home— even if other 
spots have more natural beauty. A man's individual 
life is longer and wider for being lived as part of the 

125 




in 
O 



PQ 

w 



o 

w 

u 

w 

O 
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o 

o 



RENOVATING THE DESERTED HOMESTEAD. 12/ 

family history. Here in this arbor sat our sainted 
mother; here worked in this garden corner our 
father. This tree was planted by a grandfather. 
So everything gets to have a language, if not a 
poetry. My own homestead was bought by my 
father direct from the family to whom the Indians 
donated the land. On a high knoll stands the group 
of hemlocks of which the Oneida chief, Sconondoah, 
said: "I am an aged hemlock! The winds of a hun- 
dred winters have whistled through my boughs." 
These orchard trees were planted conjointly by this 
same chieftain and his missionary friend. Dominie 
Kirkland. The soil, the brooks, the rocks, the trees, 
the glen, have associations that unite them together, 
and give them an individuality. Every man should, 
if possible, know the history of his own home whether 
he knows the history of the United States or of the 
Anglo-Saxon nations or not. It then falls to him 
to add a chapter to this history, which is inherently 
beautiful, and useful, and worthy of being carved 
into trees, hedges, stone walls and buildings. 

Still you w^ill have room for exercising the full 
spirit and zeal of improvement. You will doubtless 
find there are no driveways and hedges and shelters ; 
or if any, that others are still needed. Wind- 
breaks are likely to be found in abundance. Do not 
let an ax touch an old clump of basswood, or a 
thicket, or a tangled mass of hemlock and wild grape 
— not until you are sure they are not what you want, 
after they have been cleaned and ordered. A few 
additions, a few dead limbs cut out. and you are 
likely to find what nature asks for. Beware of the 
professional landscape artist who comes to lay out 



128 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

his patented pictures on your land. He will destroy 
in a day what you cannot recover in a century. 
Above all, look out for the professional trimmer. 
He will, if allowed, cut your evergreens into mon- 
strosities. He thinks it beautiful to cut out the 
middle branches of your spruces, or to cut up from 
the bottom your pines. He likes green hens on toji 
of hedges, and if let loose he will absolutely ruin 
the idea which nature has endeavored to work out 
I advise everyone, who is going out of the city to take 
up a country home, to be very patient. Take time 
to think for yourself. Get acquainted with your 
land. Grow into it. If you were a boy here at one 
time, renew your association with the past. Plant 
nothing and cut nothing until you have got the whole 
place well gathered into your mind. Indeed, I rec- 
ommend that you do very little for the first year, 
except to look out for sanitation and the simplest 
comforts. You will then be prepared to work in 
shelters where they are needed ; you will know where 
the wind strikes, and you will be .able to get at a 
shrubbery, and gardens with hedges and appropriate 
drives. I am sure that by the second year you will 
have lost the saw and ax passion. 

It will generally turn out that, by careful study, 
you can use a large part of what is at hand, even 
including some defects. A little management, and 
a neglected corner, with half -decayed trees and 
thickets of luiderwood, can be gently trained and 
taught to speak of the beautiful and the useful. If 
you begin with the determination of cutting away 
everything that, looked at in and of itself is defec- 
tive, you will end by cutting down everything on the 



RENOVATING THE DESERTED HOMESTEAD. I2.> 

place Remember, that that which is defective in 
itself may not be defective in relation to and combma- 
tion with other things. Often the defective parts 
have so ?rown together as to create a unity of another 
sort • and while your hedges are severely overgrown 
by other things, you had better not interfere too 
sharply in your effort to restore absolute precision. 
"Do not mistake me when I advise you to rely 
largely upon yourself ; because you may be the very 
person above all others who is in need of a wise 
friend T do not know you. so it may be as 
v^ell to add, if you are confident that there 
is someone to be found who is judicious, who 
knows how to sympathize with nature, get him 
to walk with you and counsel you m forming 
your first impressions. Gardiner, in his Homes 
and All About Them," says he would rather dig 
ditches for a philosopher than build palaces for a 
fool There are these two classes also who vvish 
advice about their lawns and their drives. The 
philosopher thinks, studies, and above all, grows. 
The fool knows everything at a glance He cuts 
trees and he plants trees with a commodore s se f- 
importance. It happens often that in doing this he 
injures his neighl>ors as well as himseli No man 
absolutely owns his acres and trees. He is under 
moral and sometimes legal obligation to the neigh- 
borhood. When he cuts down a grove or a wmd- 
break he is opening the currents that drive against 
other people's homes. This an honest man will con- 
sider Let me say to anyone who is going into the 
country for a home. Not only find the relation o the 
parts of your own land, but try to comprehend the 

9 



130 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

relation which your property bears to that of other 
people about you. Consult even the prejudices of 
those who live adjacent. They have formed their 
associations, their tastes, even their characters, 
largely from the trees and the collocation of the nat- 
ural scenery that surrounds them. Disturb them 
just as little as possible. Indeed, there is a certain 
sort of property that another man has in what you 
claim as your own. Emerson sings : 

"One harvest from your field. 

Homeward brought your oxen strong, 

Another crop your acres yield, 
Which I gather in a song." 

My plea is that you be careful of the feelings, 
the tastes and old associations that make up the 
neighborhood, of which you should be a component 
part. Press forward even your improvements con- 
siderately. It is possible to consult those whose 
judgment you do not value. In the long run, if you 
are right, you will improve not only your own prop- 
erty, but all the neighborhood ; if you are wrong, and 
the chances are you will be, you will get time to 
correct yourself. 



CHAPTER IX. 

HOMES. 

The final word is Home. Everything should 
have this in view — not a mere residence from which 
children can take flight, hut a family home made up 
of the best that nature gives us, and from which no 
one cares to go. To create such a home, everything 
should be made to contribute. If you purpose to 
grow hedges, or to plant corn fields, or to raise Hol- 
steins or Cotswolds as an end, you will prove a flat 
failure. If all of these things and many more are 
made constituent parts of home-building, you will 
succeed. 

When a man feels that the time has come for 
him to establish himself on the earth ; in other words, 
to create a home, the first thing he should decide to 
do is to develop himself into his surroundings, much 
as a mollusk grows a shell. Yet most people have 
not given a thought of what they would look like, 
if all their selfhood or character could be seen, as 
you can see their faces. It has been the business of 
this book to help you to understand yourself and 
your work ; or at least set you to discussing what 
they are. When you have found yourself out, all 
you have to do is to grow. Grow out first into a 
house. Don't be fooled by trying to fit your soul 
into John Jones's shell or into David Williams's. 
Grow yourself into an easy-fitting, comfortable, 

T31 



1^2 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

warm, cozy jacket of a house. Have a parlor if you 
need it, but not for somebody else. Of course you 
and your wife are one, and can grow together. Any- 
how you will have to do this, and so you must let 
her feel easy also. But when the house is planned, 
or while it is growing, go on growing all over your 
place. Make it such that anyone coming along will 
say, "By George! that's Henry Owen's place! I'd 
know it by the cut of it !' Go slow — I mean grow 
slow — and find out where you want a tree, or hedge, 
or windbreak, or even a rosebush, before you plant it. 
Every bush, every tree, every fence, every wind- 
break or hedge should be a part of yourself; and 
when you get through with your first season's 
growth it will be apparent that your place means 
you as much as your body means you. 

Then, by and by, when you begin to cut or trim, 
it will be just as when you pare your nails; it will be 
because something has overgrown in a perfectly 
natural way and must be pared off. A real home, 
rightly planted, never needs to be revolutionized; it 
is always, however, imdergoing evolution. Having 
started right, you will see something to be added and 
something to be improved upon each year. A com- 
mon-sense planter always works with a memoran- 
dum — that is, a pocket memory. Whenever he is 
about his property he jots down what he sees is 
needed — every little trifle and every suggested im- 
provement. Every night he looks over his memo- 
randa and marks what is to be done the next day. 
In this way nothing is overlooked ; and fully five 
times as much progress will be worked in. Nor will 
breakages and little leakages be overlooked. He 



HOMES, 133 

will know that a board is loose, that a graft is to be 
waxed, that the aphis have made lodgment on one of 
his trees, that a new disease is to be fought with 
Bordeaux, that the time has come for battling the 
currant worms, or that a brook is washing into his 
garden, or that his strawberries are in need of water. 
In this way the mind is everywhere, without too 
much friction and without too severe a tax of the 
brain. The owner knows, every minute, everything 
about his place, and is never compelled to say of any- 
thing that is damaged that he had not knowledge of 
it in due time. I shall place as much emphasis as 
possible on this point, because I am convinced that 
no one will succeed with a beautiful rural home in 
any other way. 

Nature takes care to put us into types ; but she 
takes equal care to give us all individuality in fea- 
tures. She says look at your faces, and just take no- 
tice how vast the number of copies I can make ; and in 
all the dissimilarity I shall not destroy the similarity. 
Now do you go and work after the same manner. 
Do you see that you do not simply try to make what 
someone else has made ; and yet I wish you to follow 
the general type so as not to create monstrous things 
— like stone dogs and hedge roosters. John Bur- 
roughs says, ''One of the greatest pleasures of life is 
to build a house for one's self;" but it is a greater 
pleasure to build a home. The house of a wise 
horticulturist is only one of his windbreaks and shel- 
ters. It is not here that he should exhaust his cash ; 
but he should expend with equal liberality outdoors 
and indoors. 






i^'Slr^-/' 







--tl] 



_-->.. 



HOMES. 135 

I object to outdoor parlors; but I believe in out- 
door and indoor sitting-rooms. About a beautiful 
home there is never any occasion for putting up 
"Keep off the grass." Every lawn should be free 
to the children and to visitors — at least to the chil- 
dren. But for all that there should be order and 
system about your home. The best plan is to pre- 
pare for games and sports from the very outset — 
lawn tennis, or croquet, or quoits, or all together. 
These will naturally draw the young gamesters away 
from the shrubbery and flower gardens when they 
wish to romp and play. A croquet ground should 
be absolutely level, and kept level by a nice stone wall ; 
which should rise high enough to stop the balls from 
rolling into the grass. It should be graded with fine 
sliale, and not a weed allowed to grow. Then plant 
a windbreak ; or plant it behind the windbreak. Much 
01 the fun of such a game is spoiled if we cannot play 
it on cool or windy clays. Beside my own ground 
is a great living arbor in which are chairs, where 
those who need shade can get it. You will lose noih- 
ing by thus making your whole property homeful. 
You will have kept your boys and girls with you; 
and no possible influence can attract them away. In 
other words, they find you yourself everywhere, with 
your love and your smile. 

What we wish to have the common folk see is 
that the end of home-getting is not to buy someone 
else's house ; and that it is not even to have a house 
that you have built yourself; that a man or woman 
who would have a home must begin to live himself 
or herself out of doors until the grounds are a part 
of the habitation. Whoever pro])oses to build a 



136 HEDGES^ WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

house must rather say, not, what will the house cost, 
but what will the homestead cost ; and estimate alto- 
gether the cost of the planting of live trees as well 
as the sawing and hammering together of dead ones. 
If you spend less on dust-holding carpets and cur- 
tains, on bric-a-brac furnishings, and more on beau- 
tiful grounds you will live longer and more happily. 
If a real home grows rather than happens, there will 
always be present a sense of rest and repose. 
Hedges, windbreaks, coverts, shelters, suggest pro- 
tection and comfort; if not they should never exist. 
The difficulty with many so-called homes is that 
everything is on edge all the while. You feel the 
constant presence of shears, and you hear the ever- 
lasting and detestable lawn mower — the one imple- 
ment that never points to rest and to peace, but to 
clatter and toil. I smell sweat whenever I see one. 
Some housewi\^es use a broom also in such a manner 
that it is a twin horror. You know that they watch 
your departing steps with the whisk of a broom, to 
send the dirt after you. 

A man who builds a house without a room in it 
except for work and sleep has made exactly the same 
blunder as he who plants his acres for nothing but 
work and food. It is an old law that man cannot 
live by bread alone, whatever a four-legged animal 
may do. A right sort of home should, from its 
inception, include as an object the beautiful as well 
as the useful, expecting the two, in combination, to 
create the good. It is hardly necessary to add that 
with this idea of home operative, there is no room 
for mere display. Home wraps one around as 
clothes wrap a sensible person. They are put on 



HOMES. 137 

for comfort and good taste, not to exploit wealth. 
Gardens, trees, hedges, orchards, buildings, say 
plainly, not I am rich, but I am AT HOME. 

Perhaps I have said enough in the course of my 
book to make it unnecessary to say here that nothing 
of this sort can be accomplished in the way of making 
a true home without sympathy with nature. A per- 
son who understands a bush gets in love with it, and 
knows what to do with it ; and it must be understood 
that every bush has a character of its own. You 
may almost say that every tree has a moral character 
of its own. It is good in one place, and it is bad in 
another. Horticulture consists first of all in estab- 
lishing this intimate acquaintance. If it is not 
established, you can do nothing in the way of wise 
planting. A city girl visiting my place enjoyed it 
immensely ; but, after running about, picking flowers, 
and eating fruit for some hours, she sat down on the 
steps of the house, and taking a survey of the whole, 
said, ''Well, it's immensely pretty, but it must be 
awful lonely here." ''To be sure," I said, "to you. 
But don't you see, you don't know anybody here. 
But to us all these trees and plants have souls. We 
are all acquainted, and we all understand each other 
out here. The bushes, and the hedo-es, and the trees 
make a crowd of good company. Your friends all 
put on golf suits; but mine grow golf suits." The 
poor girl could not have possibly enjoyed the most 
beautiful country life for over one day. Her char- 
acter had never grown a bush; her soul had never 
developed a rosebud. 

Now, dear readers, I hope there are many of 
you — Good-by! I shall leave you at this point, as I 



138 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 

have another engagement. But I expect to visit 
some of you another day, and see how you have 
practiced on what I have written to you. I expect 
some of you will have gone quite ahead of my ideas, 
and will have in turn much to teach me. So at least 
I hope. If my book is a total failure, I shall expect 
you to tell me of it. And, hereafter, like a wise turtle, 
T will keep my head under my own experiences. 



HOMES. 



139 




FIG. 22. GROUND PLAN OF SUBURBAN PLACE. 



index 



PAGE. 

Apple, for hedges i6 

over one hundred years old ..i6 

Arbors, living 45 

Arbor-Vite, for hedges 51 

for windbreaks 81 

Beautiful, the neglected .... 105-111 

stone walls 1 1 1 

sumac 1 1 o 

Bird culture 95-102 

Birds, v'alue of 95 

Buckthorn, for hedges 21 

Buffum pear for windbreaks .... tj 
Coal Ashes, use of for mulch . . 23 

general value of 23 

Cockspur thorn 17 

Cost of hedges 33-35 

Evergreens, for hedges 49 

material 51-58 

treatment 58-66 

ruined by bad trimming 62 

discussed by S. B. Parsons . .67-72 

Fences, live 2 

material for 2-5 

culture of 6 

summary on 10-12 

Hav'thorn for hedges 17 

Hedges, deciduous 13 

materials for I3--3 

rules for growing ^4-36 

dying out of 36 

for small lawns 38 

materials 38-45 

neglected 48 

misplaced 113 

Hemlock for hedges 51 

Homes 131 

the end of all is the real 

home 131-136 

Homesteads, old, how to reno- 
vate them 125-130 

House, house and hedge .... 11 5-1 17 
Idea, all work should express an.. 121 
Kerosene emulsion and use .... 37 



PAGE. 

Laws, stock 7 

Letters, on live fences 8-9 

Locust honey 3 

value for fences 4 

its beauty 18 

a thornless sort 17 

mice-gnawed zj, 

Lombardy poplar, for windbreak, -tj 

Mahonia 51-53 

Magnolias 58 

jNIulching, discussed 27-33 

Norway spruce, for windbreaks . .81 

Oaks, for hedges 19 

Ornamental hedges 38 

Osage orange, for fences 2 

for hedges 13 

gnawed by mice 23 

Fears, over two hundred years old. 17 
Roadways, should be gardens ... 46 
Rural improvement societies .... 94 

Siberian pea tree 20 

Street hedges, objectionable .... 46 
Study, need of studying grounds 120 

Sunlight catcher 93 

Tartarian honeysuckles, for hedge. 38 

1 horn pyracantha 15 

hawthorn 16 

other thorns 17 

Trimming hedges, deciduous .... 29 

evergreen 62 

WMlow for windbreaks 83 

Windbreaks, their importance . . 75 

material for 76-88 

natural 78-80 

for winter 80 

evergreens for 81 

for special purposes 88 

for bees 88 

for animals 89 

for buildings 89-90 

for winter 93 

Woman's corner 102-104 



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